skip to Main Content

Brian Cleeve 1980

Watkins Publishing (No longer in existence.)*

Copyright information


A Note from the Author

January 19, 2000

The purpose of the two books (The House an the Rock & The Seven Mansions) is to invite anyone who is interested to enter onto a new kind of life, that can be called the Path of Obedience – meaning obedience to God’s Will. But before you can sensibly obey any command or guidance you need to know who you are obeying, why you should obey them, and once you are satisfied as to who and why, then how to do it and what may be asked of you.

The only good way to find out is by question and answer – your questions and God’s answers: not a Church’s answers, or a guru’s or a Red Indian medicine man’s, but God’s. Is it possible that God would answer you? The Church will say “No”, because if it said “Yes” it would make itself redundant. It alone knows God’s Will and is eager to tell you. And of course very often what it tells you is wise and good. But also, often enough, it is neither, as many of its victims, from heretics to women, would tell you if they had survived.

In spite of the Church’s disapproval many people have been in direct communication with God; saints and mystics who have been willing to listen to Her. I say “Her”, not “Him”, not because God is a woman in any limited sense, but as a counter balance to the masculine prejudice of Christianity. And common sense should tell us that a mother is a better image of the Creator than a father.

But listening to God, to a silent Voice in your mind that answers your questions and guides your conduct and your life, can be very dangerous, which is one reason, the only good one, why the Roman Catholic Church disapproves. We can be misled. We can hear evil as well as good. And even more dangerous because it is so easy and so seductive, we can hear what we want to hear, and not what God wishes us to hear.

That is why we need to learn how to listen and how to ask good questions. We need to become ready to hear and accept hard answers as well as soft ones. We need to discard our prejudices and certainties as to what God must want, and what She surely cannot want. We must go to Her as children go to school, ready to learn, to be taught.

There is a theory that God is already within us and that all we need do is find Her. And there has to be truth in this. If God was not in some sense “inside” us we could not exist. Our souls are “the Breath of God”; God gives us life and that essential minimum of Grace that allows us to continue to live. But when the theory goes on to tell us that in reality we are God, that God is simply our own Higher or Inner Self, once again common sense says “No!” because what that is really saying is that there is no God. It is as though you were to believe that the light in your light bulb created its self; that there is no mains supply, no generator, no such thing as electricity.

There is another reason as well for rejecting the “I am God” theory. It involves the worship of self. There is a kindred theory that one needs to love one’s self before one can love anyone else. Why? Do you really, truly believe you are loveable? Do you examine your self, and say “I am wonderful!”? If you do, then nothing written here is for you.

Only if you believe that unselfishness is better than selfishness, and that the highest praise anyone can give someone else is to say that they are selfless, can you even begin to accept the idea of entering on a Path of Obedience to God’s Will. “Not my will, God, but Thine.”

To follow this Path means getting rid of self, selfish desires; even desires that seem to be good. Because we cannot know what is really good until God tells us. It is an old saying that the worst thing that can happen to us is to have our prayers answered. “Please God, give me…” Dear God, I need… I must have… I want…” “Please let Jimmy pass his exams.(even though he hasn’t worked for them)… please cure Aunt Mary’s arthritis (although her diet is crazy)…”

All these prayers assume that you know what is good. They also assume that God needs reminders and promptings, “Please remember Cousin Billy and let him get that job…”

If you think in those ways nothing in these pages is likely to appeal to you. But if you are ready to think differently, or to consider a different way of thinking, then the following suggestions may be of use to you.

God knows your real needs far better than you do. If you offer to obey God, She will teach you how to do that. But this means ceasing to obey your self, your own will and desires. You can’t have it both ways. And She will require your obedience seven days a week. You can’t make bargains, like saying “I’ll give you so much of my time but I want days off!”

You must not expect to be admired for what you are setting out to do. The best you should hope for is to be ignored. The likeliest result is amused contempt and a possibility is sheer hatred. When anyone sets out to obey God evil becomes very angry. You may have to endure some very rough periods.

Before all else you will need to cleanse your life. If you were inviting a lover to your house, you would clean it. (If you wouldn’t you are not the sort of person who is likely to read this.) If you are inviting God into your life it needs to be a clean life.

Finally, why should you do this? The best reason is because you want to. The next best is because you feel you should. And not for any reward, even your own salvation, but in order to offer God something, to become Her servant. Is there any better, greater ambition?

Back Cover

“What can the author say about a book that claims to be his dialogue with God? What defence can he offer against those who call him a liar or a madman? The only possible defence is the book itself. If it convinces you, the author matters no longer. If it fails to convince you, the author matters still less.

“Here are answers to questions that have troubled my mind, and perhaps yours, for many years. The reason for there being evil in the world. What happens when we die? What is psychic power, and should we seek it? How can we find God? Why are we here? And do animals have souls? Why have all religions been so cruel to women, and so convinced that they alone are right? Why does God allow the innocent to suffer, and the guilty to flourish? Is there really a Devil? Are there really good and evil spirits? Are we alone on our journey, and where are we going?

“I asked these, and a hundred other questions; could not accept some of the answers I received, and came back and back to them, this way and that–a modern, mildly liberal conscience brought up against Reality like a man walking into a wall at night! In my circumstances you might have asked different questions, reacted differently in every way. But the answers would have been the same. Here is the Reality of the world we live in. It is not offered to you as a theory, or a panacea, or Good News. In it you will find a lot of bad news if you think in materialistic terms and are looking for Utopia on earth. Utopia is a long way off, and the road there is full of stones.

“Nor is the book offered to you to pursuade you to do anything, or be anything, or believe anything. It is simply a witness, a witness’ account of being allowed to question God.”

About the Author

The author was born in Essex in 1921 and now lives in Dublin–his father was Irish. He is a novelist and journalist, with a PHD from the National University of Ireland, and was involved in war service from 1939 to 1945. In 1948 he went to live in South Africa until his expulsion in 1954. He is married, with two grown-up daughters and three grandchildren. His literary output includes many short stories and novels, and most recently a long novel on the Holy Grail in modern times which is still to be published. His next prophetic work is provisionally entitled The Seven Mansions.

* Brian Cleeve did not accept any royalties from the original publishers of the two books which were subsequently priced accordingly.


THE BEGINNING

I felt a pressure on my forehead. Like a band of pressure, from temple to temple, not heavy, but firm.

I felt the coldness of a Presence, a sense of great suffering.

A voice said, not aloud, but within my mind, I see all that was, and is, and will be.

And then the voice said I shall teach you to hear, and to see, and you must write down what you have seen and heard.

I dreamed I was with a companion, greasy and insinuating, swarthy, glistening with sweat, an oily shining on his skin; his eyes unbearably knowing, his face and smile persuading me towards evil.

– That was a devil, the voice told me.

I saw a hand reaching down towards me. Only a hand, the fingers blunt, covered in a reddish fur, ragged and ugly, striving to grasp hold. Huge and powerful and searching.

– That was a devil’s hand.

I was in a narrow lane, in the dark. Cars came at tremendous speed towards me, a rush of power, overwhelming, terrifying.

– That was an image of the power of evil.

I saw a great company of souls walking in the darkness far away, climbing slowly, carrying lights; small lights like candle flames; a soft, pale blue haze within the darkness. There was a sense of joy, of nearness of triumph, and I thought that I could hear their singing.

– They were on their long road to Paradise.

I saw wheels of fire, red and gold, revolving one within another, like latticework, or Chinese carving. But the fire was alive, and moving. This was the soul of a man made perfect, a soul that had completed its journey. The wheels of fire were in reality one continuous wheel, immensely complex, that contained within it all that the man had ever been, and all made perfect. All the lives he had lived through his soul’s evolution, all the ages of each life from birth to wisdom, all his love that had grown in him and with him, until it turned to fire.

And within the wheel there was his spiritual garden, his own fragment of Paradise, a microcosm of our world.

I have often prayed to be made wise, to be given Wisdom.

The voice told me that that was impossible for me. Enlightenment I might have, but never Wisdom, during this life.

I asked how Wisdom could be different from Enlightenment.

– Wisdom knows Perfection, the voice said. It is union with God. Enlightenment is only a momentary vision of a fragment of Perfection. Enlightenment is seeing for a brief while. Wisdom is possessing, for ever. The one is swift-moving. The other a deep stillness.

I asked about the other voices that came to me, contradicting, interfering.

– They are the voices of unformed souls, my true voice said. They are between lives, between being animals and men. They repeat things they have heard, without knowing what they mean. They are mischievous like idle children. You can hear these voices in any silence. They are the twittering shades of the Greeks. It is they who gave the Hebrews the idea of Sheol, of a grey underworld of hopelessness, neither good nor evil. There is no need to be afraid of them, nor sorry for them. They are only waiting their turn to live.

But are there sometimes real spirits of the dead, who would want to do harm to the living?

– Yes, if they are those of men or women who gave themselves into the power of evil while they were alive. They have left the true path and entered into the Devil’s, and they obey him. They become like devils.

If a man can become like a devil, can he also become like an angel? Is there no eternal difference between angels and men?

– None, the voice answered. Men become like angels. That is their perfection.

Is there only one Path towards Perfection? I asked. The Path of Suffering?

– There are as many paths as there are men and women, the voice answered. Yours is not suffering, nor being an ascetic. Yours is to tell what you have heard and seen, and will hear and see; and to be obedient. Yours is the way of Enlightenment.

Is that a much longer way than the path of Suffering, or the path of Wisdom?

– Wisdom is not a path. It is the end of every path. Suffering is the shortest way to it, the straightest, and the best. It is like climbing a sheer cliff to reach the summit of a mountain. Obedience is like walking round and round the mountain, along a path that climbs slowly. But the air is beautiful, and the path reaches the same goal at the end.

And Enlightenment?

– Enlightenment makes swift leaps from one spiral to another, and shortens the path of obedience. But there is always the danger of a fall.

Is the Tao a way that Europeans can follow?

– No. There is too much noise in Europe and the West. You need to listen to the stars to follow the way of the Tao.

How can we listen to the stars?

– They make sounds. They vibrate. They influence the earth. And the earth has its own vibrations. You must listen for those and feel them with your body and your mind. I have told you, the earth and the stars are living beings. If you listen they will speak to you.

No one will believe this.

– The Chinese who follow the Tao have believed it for five thousand years.

What good has it done them?

– They have found the easiest way of all. They are moving with the current and not against it. The earth and the stars flow towards Perfection, towards the goal. It is their nature. They went out from the centre in the beginning. They flow back towards it. If you go with them you will arrive without effort.

What you are saying means nothing, at least to me.

– That is why you must be obedient. You are like a blind man finding a path through a forest. You have to hold someone’s hand. If you could see you could find your own way.

Am I surrounded by dangers I cannot see?

– By thousands.

What sort of dangers?

– Evil spirits.

No one believes in evil spirits.

– I know. The evil spirits are delighted.

Are they the only dangers?

– Are they not enough?

But how can they influence our lives?

– In every way. You have a spirit life that runs parallel to your life of the body in the world. They can injure you in that life if you give them the opportunity and that injury is mirrored in the life of your body. In accidents, ill health, misfortunes, and much worse than those, by leading you into evil. Men who feel that there is a curse on them are often right. But they will have brought it on themselves.

And does the way of the Tao avoid this?

– It can. If you follow a safe path you are less likely to stumble. If you move with the current of the river you move faster with less effort. I have told you, the Tao is the way of the Universe, it is the way the Universe flows, as it moves towards Perfection.

And the spirit life we lead? Is this the same as our body’s life?

– No. It only affects it. Your spirit is quite different from your body. Your spirit contains all your bodies, all your past and future lives. It is growing like a plant growing, fulfilling itself. Just as the Universe grows, expands into fulfilment, and moves towards Perfection, so your spirit is developing and growing. You would not recognise it as the spirit of a man. It looks quite different. But what happens to it affects your body immediately. And what happens to your body affects your spirit, helps or hinders it. Or injures it. But they are separate.

Is this spirit the same as my soul?

– No. Your spirit is your entirety, all that you have been, and are, and will be. It is the real You. The whole of You. Your soul lives within this entirety, at its centre. It has no Will, no consciousness of its own. It is like a singer’s voice, the flame of a candle, the blossom of a flower. The voice is not the same as the singer. But it is the singer’s purpose to make the voice perfect, to bring it to its predestined perfection. That is the spirit’s task with the soul. The body is not even an essential part of the spirit, it is an incident in the spirit’s progress. The spirit is the gardener. The soul is the garden. The body is something the gardener uses for a time and then discards, like a wheelbarrow, or a spade. He needs it, and is done with it, and lays it aside. It wears out and he replaces it. It is not the gardener. Nor the garden.

But a wheelbarrow is not alive. Surely I am more than that?

– Yes. When the gardener uses a wheelbarrow it remains a thing. When the spirit takes a new body, the body becomes a part of the spirit’s wholeness, it takes on the spirit’s life. The spirit is in it. But the spirit is not it. I am giving you images. Take them as images and not as the reality.

THE BODY

At a certain level of awareness the body ceases to be a burden. One can leave it down – like a wheelbarrow – one can translate one’s mind and consciousness to a distant place as quickly as thought flies. This is because the body, and time, and space, are not as you think they are. Just as a telephone can link two sides of the world, so can thought. And more powerfully.

How can one reach such a level of awareness?

– By learning to be still. To acquire inner stillness. That is the beginning of all knowledge. If you are always asking questions you cannot hear the answers.

How can I learn to be still?

– By emptying your mind. You are always busy. Learn to do nothing. Think of nothing. Do not even listen. Spend half an hour not doing, not thinking.

That’s impossible.

– No. If you find it hard, say the Rosary. Say the familiar words, but do not hear them. Do not think of them. There are many ways of praying. This is one. Emptiness. Of course the empty space must be clean. You are inviting God there.

How can it be made clean? Do you mean, without sin? Without impure thoughts?

– That of course. And without desires, without urgency. Also it must be physically clean. You need to eat the right foods, abstain from the wrong ones. You know that alcohol blunts the mind. Thickens it. So do certain foods. Just as they affect the body, so they affect the mind. A man who eats meat has a certain type of body. The meat forms his body. And he has a certain type of mind also. The meat forms it. I am not speaking only of meat. Many foods prevent the mind from hearing. Alcohol, tobacco, all drugs do. Many fruits and vegetables that are innocent in themselves or even beneficial in some ways, prevent the mind from receiving spiritual advice.

Must one then follow a strict diet in order to be saved?

– Not at all. One can be saved in a thousand ways. But if one wishes to follow any of the paths of the spirit, one must mould one’s body accordingly. One must eat this and reject that. One must do certain exercises for the body, so that the body can serve the mind properly, and be subject to it.

Am I to write down what these foods and exercises are?

– Later. Very few will follow the advice. But for those who do, stillness becomes possible, and they can hear with their minds.

Can they also learn to see with their minds? With their third eye?

– Of course. What is an eye for, if not to see?

And there is really a Third Eye?

– Yes.

Is it in the forehead?

– No. That is only an image of the reality. The inner ear which allows you to hear me – does that grow out of the top of your head? It is inside your mind. So is the Third Eye. But it is harder to see than to hear.

When one learns to see, what kind of vision will one have?

– It depends where one looks. One could see a friend far away. One could see other planets. One could see God.

Is this travelling out of the body, such as some psychic mediums describe?

– No. That is much easier, and the traveller stays in this world and quite close to his ordinary body. If he went too far from it the link would break and his body would die.

If he stays away too long will he also die?

– Yes. One can even put a limit of time and space for such travelling. A hundred kilometres, an hour or so. It is really a trick, and not in any way a spiritual experience. It is a kind of psychic conjuring and not worth the trouble.

But if one did it, would people see one in two places at once? Could they see one as one travelled?

– It can be. Sometimes such journeys happen by accident, from intensity of thought, or genuine necessity. Then the traveller can be seen, usually at the far end of the journey. Or the spirit-conjurer can make himself seen, if he knows how.

Castaneda speaks of learning to see a separate reality of the body, and of the body leaping down from high cliffs and back again. Is this true?

– Yes. It can be done. And the separate reality he writes about is merely the body’s true form. An intertwining and revolving of bands of energy that appear to the Third Eye as bands of light. The real body has the shape of a candle flame, and something of its appearance, with an inner complexity of movement.

Is this the same as the aura that mediums claim to see?

– Yes. But what most mediums see is the outer fringe of the flame.

And do these aura have colours? And do the colours have a meaning?

– Yes. The purest auras are white, or almost white. The more worldly or wicked the individual is, the darker the aura, until someone truly evil is surrounded by blackness, a complete absence of light. There are very few at either end of the spectrum.

Do the colours also reflect character? Red for anger? Green for jealousy?

– No. Not in that way. Red shows aggression, ambition, rather than anger. Green shows meekness, humility of mind or body, growth towards perfection. Yellow means someone who is striving for perfection. The intensity and shade of the colour show the degree of the quality. The nearer to white, the nearer to perfection. The more intense, the stronger the ruling passion. One can have a colour that is both dark and strong. And another that is both pale and weak. One needs to see to understand.

How can one learn to see?

– In the same way that you have learned to hear. By emptying your mind, of thoughts, of pictures. That is the first step.

AURAS

White = Perfection, contains all colours.

Black = Evil, contains no colours.

Violet = Lust, hatred, wickedness, despair.

Indigo = Selfishness, greed, passion.

Blue = Love, kindness, warmth.

Green = Humility, meekness, hope, growth towards perfection.

Yellow = Seeking perfection, coldness.

Orange = Ambition, egotism, hardness.

Red = Strength, desire, aggression.

WAITING

Learn to wait. For everything. For learning. For achievement. For me. Learn to wait without impatience, without longing. Learn to be content with now. Learn to exist in the now. To be. Not to think always, I will be. Think, I am. This is to strive to be like God.

THE MIND

The body is part of the mind. As the body is, so is the mind.

Then does a cripple have a crippled mind? A hunchback a distorted mind?

– No. I am speaking of the real body, that I have described to you. But what happens to the outer, physical body affects the real body through the mind. The mind links the two bodies. The mind is the real body. If the mind allows itself to be distorted by the accidents that happen to the material body, then the real body does become crippled. But this need not happen, and these distortions of the outer body can be blessings from which the mind and real body gain in strength.

And if the mind is imbecile? If it is like a vegetable? Say a mongol child, or a hydrocephalic lying always in bed, barely conscious? Would it not be better if such unfortunates never lived?

– How do you know they are unfortunate? How do you know anything of their innermost mind and life? An apparent imbecile may spend his inward life absorbed in the contemplation of God. The Hydrocephalic may not move or speak because he is listening to God.

But some imbeciles are clearly miserable. They are distraught. They are a danger to themselves and others.

– You are talking about the mad and the possessed, which is one and the same thing. That is different.

You mean possessed by evil spirits? But no one believes in that.

– I have said before, nothing delights evil spirits so much as that disbelief. Have you never heard of poltergeists?

Of course. Are they really cases of possession?

– What else do you think they are? They are spirits that take possession of children, about the age of puberty, when the children have the greatest degree of undirected force.

I don’t understand.

– You do understand. Do you think children cannot deliver themselves over to evil?

How does it happen?

– A child is malicious, or discontented, or troubled, often with reason. At a certain stage it possesses great psychic strength that is meant to help it to become mature, just as a plant has surges of growth and sap. The child may put this energy at the disposal of an evil or of a mischievous spirit, or of unformed minds of the kind I have described to you before. Of minds waiting to become human. And the psychic energy can then be translated into physical action. It is like electricity. The wandering, evil or mischievous minds need a source of physical energy to use before they can achieve physical results. This happens with every kind of evil. This is the meaning of being possessed.

Could one also be possessed by good spirits?

– Yes, of course! Of course! This is the whole business of a human life. Of every life your mind and soul ever lead. As plant, animal, man, and afterwards, in your next lives. To become possessed by good. That is your whole goal and aim and purpose. Do you think you could reach God without help?

How can one be possessed by good?

– One must pray. One must be still. One must listen.

But most people have no time for that.

– They must make time.

But they must earn a living, look after families!

– Is that what takes up all their waking hours? A man – a woman must make their worldly life complete. Out of this completeness comes fulfilment, and their next life.

I don’t understand.

– They must make their lives tranquil. Even a life of suffering. Of disappointment. They can still achieve completeness. They can welcome the suffering. Accept the disappointment as the Will of God. Be glad of it. Be content to wait.

Then nothing would ever get done. No one would be ambitious, or work hard or struggle.

– Sometimes that might be better. Struggle for what? More important still, struggle in what manner? Do you want to die rich, or good?

Is it wrong to want to become rich, and famous, successful?

– Successful at what?

Anything. Making boots?

– If the boots are the best the man can make, and he sells them at the fairest price, and loves the people who are going to use them, then that is a good ambition.

He would go bankrupt.

– You have answered your own question.

There would be no business done in the world!

– Do you imagine that in Paradise men will spend their time making and selling things?

But if no one made and sold, even for selfish reasons, there would be no industry, no trade, no clothes, no machines, no medicine, no food. Half the world would die in a month.

– More than half.

And do you want that?

– No.

I don’t understand you.

– The world has taken ten thousand years to get into its present state. It cannot be cured overnight. But it needs curing. A man who has ruined his health by overeating and indulgence all his life cannot be cured by giving up all his bad habits at once. He must change gradually or he will die of the change, even the change towards good. But he still needs to change.

But what about the good things that come from industry and machines? The books, the music, the cheap food, the cheap clothes, the houses? The travel, the ways of seeing the world, of becoming educated? Do you want us to go back to the Stone Age?

– What do you know about the Stone Age?

Nothing. Except that men could not live like that today even if it was good to do so. There are too many of us.

– How many of you have good books, and good music, and enough good food and good houses, and education?

But your way, there would be still less.

– Do you really understand my way?

No.

– Then why not listen? Men must work. But they must work for different reasons. They must work to serve, not to gain. Look at your world. Do men make things to serve or to gain? Do they care about other people?

Sometimes.

– Then those times they are right.

But the Church Itself doesn’t teach this.

– It does. Often It fails to listen to Itself, but that is what it teaches. I keep saying to you, listen. Be quiet and listen.

This is a long way from the mind, that you began to tell me about.

– No. This is the answer to your question about the Mind. You asked me, what is the mind? I am telling you what it is. It is your real life. All the worldly things that seem to you so important have no meaning at all except as they serve the mind.

You spoke of making one’s life complete. How can one do that?

– By doing everything in the world as one should. In the world one has a worldly task. You must do it perfectly. It may not succeed, but you must succeed. You must make yourself good in every way. Then you are complete, like an egg. And you are ready to be born again.

This is only mysticism.

– Only?

A woman, say, whose husband is a failure, and whose children are failures, spends her life in torment because of them. However good she is, can she be complete, and tranquil?

– If she accepts the Will of God, yes.

But that is just quiescence! Despair! Surely she must go on trying?

– So far as is sensible, yes. After that she must accept, be quiescent. Be inwardly quiet. And why was her husband a failure, and her children a torment to her? Was any of it her fault?

Thinking that is not going to make her inwardly quiet.

– But it may make her better. And it might help her family to be better. The same applies to husbands, children, everyone. To come to terms with their faults. Not to accept them, but purge them. This is a very old doctrine. I am surprised you need to have it explained to you. This is the whole task of the mind. To purge itself, and prepare for the next life. Surely you have been told this before?

People will be furious if I try to tell them all this. They’ll throw stones at me.

– I Know.

No one wants to hear these things.

– I know.

DESIRE

Is it right to have desires, or ambitions?

– One should desire union with God. One should have the ambition to serve God. Nothing else.

ON RELIGIONS

Was Buddha God, or a man?

– He was a man who achieved union with God.

And Mahomet?

– Mahomet was a man.

Did he achieve union with God?

– No.

Was he evil?

– No. But his work led to evil.

Is it difficult for a Mohammedan to reach God?

– No more than for anyone else. But being a Mohammedan does not help him, and may hinder him.

Yet Mohammedan mystics seem like Christian mystics. They describe the same visions.

– All mystics see the same visions. But some starting points are better than others. Yet once the journey is begun the starting point no longer matters.

Are there other religions that are a hindrance to finding God?

– Yes. Many. Only the Catholic Faith contains the entire Truth.

ON DIET

What should one eat?

– If one wants to hear, and to see?

Yes.

– One should give up all foods that interfere with hearing and seeing. One should give up meat, and alcohol, and tobacco. That is the beginning. One should give up all drugs, like tea and coffee. All sweet things made with sugar. And there are many other things that are either harmful or useless.

Do you want to describe them?

– No. Once someone begins to hear correctly he or she will be told what to eat, and what to avoid.

Even what you have said already is too hard for most people.

– Then they will never hear correctly.

But many people hear without making any sacrifice in what they eat and drink.

– Yes. But what do they hear?

And people take drugs in order to see visions.

– Yes. But what visions do they see?

Some are good.

– They are not good. At best they are amusements. At worst they can lead to Hell. Taking drugs is a hard path that needs long training, and it is still worthless.

Monks and nuns go on hard, pure diets. Do they hear correctly?

– Yes. If they also learn to listen. Often they are too afraid of what they hear, and reject it. Or they are ordered by their superiors not to listen.

Is this what God wants?

– No.

Why are you telling me these things?

– So that you can tell others. God wants everyone to listen. And obey.

But they will hear so many voices, even when they have prepared themselves. How can they tell true from false?

– They must learn. Exactly as one learns anything else that is difficult. By constant effort.

No one will believe any of this.

– Some will believe.

T I M E

Time is simply a convention. In reality, all things are happening now. There is only now. Time is like a space in which everything exists in the same moment. What you were, and are, and will be, all exist together. In the world, you see only a fragment of this space, as if you were walking through a small valley. Do you imagine the rest of the landscape has ceased to exist or has not yet come into existence because you cannot see it?

Even the spirit body I have told you of is only part of your reality. Each of your lives has a material body and a spirit body connected with it. And each life is connected to the others, and all are held together by your real self, your mind, and your soul. Like a wheel, the spokes holding the rim together. With a centre. The wheel turns, and progresses, but you do not say, ‘that part of the wheel was, and this part is, and that other part is not yet.’ The wheel must travel towards God, and perfect itself. But it is not travelling through space, or time. It is travelling in reality through eternity.

I cannot understand that.

– I know. Do not try.

You say ‘my real self, and my mind, and my soul.’ Are they all different? Are there three things in me?

– Yes and no. It is like the Trinity. The mind is like the Father. The self is like the Son. The soul is like the Holy Spirit. If you can understand the Trinity, you can understand my answer. The mind informs and is the entire person. It makes the whole. It is the whole. The self is what it makes, it is what it is. The soul is the energy of the mind, the yearning towards God. Just as the Holy Spirit is God’s yearning towards man.

FREE WILL

If Time does not exist, and everything is, then is there no Free Will?

– There is, and there is not. What will happen has already happened, it is happening. And yet it can be changed.

How? Surely change means time passing, and you say there is no time?

– No. But as well as everything that is, there is also the shadow of everything that could be. If you imagine things happening it is because they could happen. You cannot imagine the impossible. You can imagine the very strange, not the impossible.

I don’t understand.

– It does not matter. Imagine a thousand possible lives for everyone, each depending on choices they make at different moments. Imagine a traveller with a thousand possible journeys and combinations of journeys in front of him. All those journeys exist. The places he could visit, pass through. They all exist now. And he makes his choice now. Seen from one point of view he is travelling from one place to another, hesitating at a cross roads, entering a cul-de-sac, turning back, going towards danger, turning away from it, perhaps without even knowing it was there, at last reaching a goal – the one he set himself, or another; or else failing to reach any goal, and becoming lost, and dying of despair. That is how you see him.

But from God’s point of view he is already there. And in all the places he has chosen to be. His journey takes no time at all, his choices take no time at all, because there is no time. And yet he makes the choices, and could have made others.

The Mind is the totality of one’s Being, it is all embracing and formless. It has no form or shape or substance. It is. The Self is the form and shape the Mind gives to itself, so that it may see itself. The Soul is the energy the mind possesses to form the Self. It is the link between Self and Mind, and is in both of them, and becomes both of them.

The Mind is Being, Potential. It contains all possibilities.

The Soul is Life, that the Mind breathes into the Self.

The Self is Consciousness.

THE SOUL AND REINCARNATION

The soul passes through a series of animal shapes, from the simplest, a single cell, to the human, to other shapes beyond the human. The mind creates these shapes. As it gains experience and strength it progresses from the simple to the complex.

This progress is not merely one of complexity, but also of morality. It is essential that each incarnation of the mind should be a striving for perfection. The cell must be a perfect cell. The flower a perfect flower. The wolf a perfect wolf. It is in achieving this momentary perfection that the mind can advance to a higher incarnation for the soul to dwell in.

But when it progresses the previous incarnations do not cease to exist. They continue as part of the totality of the mind. These forms remain as part of the mind’s whole form. Each incarnation is like the petal of a flower. All of them together make up the blossom.

ON HELL

The mind and soul and self can be destroyed. If the mind gives itself to evil, eventually it will be destroyed, like a star exploding. The self and the soul belonging to it will cease to exist, having no mind to support and create them. They will simply dissolve, like breath. But the mind will disperse, like the atoms of which breath is composed. It will become the spiritual equivalent of cosmic dust, drifting through space. It will return to the stock of material of the spiritual universe. It will return to God as unconscious nothingness, to be remade, rebreathed into a new mind, and begin the process all over again, until at last all this spirit material is used, and made perfect, and rejoins God of its own will.

But the self and soul will be destroyed utterly. This is the meaning of Hell. The moment in which the self realises, the conscious mind realises, that it has failed, and must cease to exist.

And is Hell therefore only a moment?

– That moment lasts for ever. It is the only moment. It is Now.

Then there is Hell? And it is eternal?

– That is what it means. A soul and a self and a mind are lost for ever. They have failed to become perfect and have gone back into nothingness. The moment at which they realise this is a triumph for Evil. For all the devils of Hell.

But if Hell is nothingness, how can there be devils?

– The devils are permitted to continue in existence so long as time lasts. Their moment of dissolution seems longer, that is all. Then they too will vanish.

And do the devils have minds, and do they become ‘cosmic dust’?

– Yes. That dust has no good or evil attached to it. It returns to Me.

You are God?

– Yes. Who else could tell you these things?

You might be a spirit of the dead. You might be an evil spirit.

– Evil spirits tell you to obey evil. I have told you to obey good. The spirits of the dead are not permitted to tell these things.

You might be a spirit of good, but a lesser spirit, an angel.

– An angel would tell you only what I permitted him to tell. And he could not lie to you about his identity.

Could a spirit of the dead lie to me?

– If it was possessed by evil. Then it would tempt you towards evil.

You speak of spirits. Are they different to the mind? Are they the soul?

– They are formed minds, that have used their energy to create consciousness. I have told you. First the mind exists. I create it out of formlessness, out of nothing. Out of myself. Out of the void. I am the void. I breathe on it and it has energy and strength. It uses that energy to create a self. To create life. Like an amoeba, a cell of consciousness. It is a microcosm of the Universe. A microcosm of Me. That is what is meant by the words, In His image He created them, male and female He created them. The mind as it develops must absorb and receive more energy, more of My Spirit, more of the Holy Spirit, the Spirit of Good. It must receive more of Me, to become perfect, and achieve union with Me. Or else it turns away from Me, and receives its strength from Evil.

But if Evil is merely a turning away from Good, does it have no reality?

– Darkness is merely an absence of light. Cold is merely an absence of heat. But darkness and cold exist. They are the natural conditions of nothingness. Infinite darkness. Infinite cold.

I was in the void. I chose to exist. I created My Self out of the void. I struggled with the dark and the cold from the beginning. I am still struggling, to preserve My creation. To preserve My Self.

Then are You evolving?

– Yes. I am still creating My Self by creating you. You are part of My moment of creation. Evil is the turning back to nothingness of part of My creation. The rebellion against existence, of some of My creatures. They prefer to continue sleeping. They prefer death to life. Nothingness to existence.

In every mind there is a temptation towards dissolution, for the mind to pull apart into fragments. Dissolution is easy. Unity is hard.

ON LOVE

Love is life. Love is the Holy Spirit. Love is the force that creates all things. Love binds all things together.

The opposite of love is not hate, but lust.

Lust turns inwards, looking at the self. Lust is self-love. Lust is the beginning of dissolution. Lust destroys the mind that harbours it, like a worm in a fruit. Lust uses its object and degrades it. Lust insults the holiness of all created beings. Lust serves only death.

Love turns outwards, looking at the other. Love yearns towards the other. Love is the beginning and the end of unity. Love perfects that mind that knows love, like the sap that rises in a tree. Love serves its object and sees it as holy. Love worships God in all His creatures. Love is the servant of life.

OF ANIMALS

All living creatures possess the hope of immortality. All living creatures belong to a group mind that can one day find perfection, and perfect union with God. There are no lower orders of Creation. Only parts of created minds that are simpler than other parts. You do not say of a man ‘his head’s immortal but his foot is not.’ All of him is immortal. So are those parts of the Spirit Mind of which the man is a part. Amoeba, grass, flower, tree, animal, bird, Beings beyond man of which you have no conception. They are all part of his whole mind, all are essential. He cannot become perfect without all of them becoming perfect. Just as a man’s body cannot be perfect if he has lost a foot, or an eye.

Do you mean that every animal in existence, every blade of grass is part of mankind?

– I mean that mankind is part of every living thing you see. All life is one.

You have told me that the earth itself is a living Being. Are we part of it?

– Yes. Just as the earth is a part of you. The earth must become again man’s garden. And man will be part of the garden. And the garden will be part of man.

ON SEEING

Last night I saw my true self. An unsteady sphere of pale yellow in the dark, like a dandelion, a will-o’-the-wisp, almost lost in the surrounding darkness. It seemed to me that a breath would blow out so small a light.

And I saw other things connected with myself. Flowers that I had been, and the grey stem of a beech tree. Yellow daffodils, growing among the roots.

Were these true visions, or was I imagining them?

– They were true, the voice said. These were things you have been. And they are still you. They are a part of you.

What does that yellow flame mean? Not even a flame. A pale light, hobbling.

– It means seeking. Be content that it is like that. Only strive to make the light stronger.

How can I do that, when I understand nothing?

– Seek harder to understand. Seek to love. Burn with love and your light will burn brighter. How did the daffodils and the bole of the beech tree seem to you?

They were clear and strong, like reality by daylight.

– That is because there you were striving your utmost to be perfect. Strive in the same way now.

Will you show me other visions?

– I will show you a raven flying. That is you.

Is that all you will show me?

– For the time being, yes.

ON THE VIRGIN MARY

Mary is the Holy Spirit. The Spirit is the Virgin Mary Incarnate. The Spirit came to Mary and stayed with her. From that moment onwards she was both God and woman, the counterpart of her son Jesus. Like his, her body was assumed into Heaven. Now the Holy Spirit appears in the world in the form of Mary, Queen of Heaven.

Yet while Mary was still alive the Holy Spirit was sent to the Apostles. It also hovered over Jesus at the Baptism in Jordan. How could this have been if Mary was the Holy Spirit?

– Your question is meaningless. The Holy Spirit is God. It is part of the Trinity. It is the Trinity, the binding force between Father and Son, and between God and Man. It is the essence of Creation. It was in Mary, and became Mary. And yet it was still God, and with God, as it was Jesus, and with Jesus. It was and is male and female. But for Man’s sake, and as an expression of God’s love for man, the Holy Spirit shows Itself to man as the Holy Virgin, the Sancta Sophia, the Divine Wisdom. And yet It is also the real Mary, the mother of Jesus, wholly God and wholly woman, as Jesus is wholly God and wholly man.

Then the apparitions, at Lourdes, and Fatima, and Garabandal and other places – they are all true?

– Yes.

But all ages, even before Christianity existed, have reported similar visions. Was the Great Mother Isis for example an illusion, or the Devil’s trickery?

– Neither. She was a foreshadowing of the Holy Virgin. As the Sacrificed Gods were foreshadowings of Jesus.

But did these foreshadowings possess any reality? Did these gods and goddesses exist, except in the minds of men?

– They existed. Some were devils. Some were angels. All had reality. Some still possess it.

And those that have vanished?

– Have been destroyed, or have destroyed themselves, or returned to God.

The warnings given to mankind by the Virgin, during Her apparitionsof wars to come, and disasters threatening the world. Are they all true?

– Yes.

Is Armageddon coming?

– Yes.

And the rule of the Beast?

– Yes.

These prophecies also exist in the Revelation of St. John. Are they the same ones?

– Yes.

Do they apply to this generation?

– This, and the next, and the next.

To this coming century?

– Yes. Beginning now.

And yet Revelation was written very long ago. Why should we believe them to be true of now, and not of 500 years ago, or of St. John’s own times, or the invasions of the Huns?

– Because I tell you it is now.

No one will believe it.

– No one believed Noah.

Does God mean to destroy mankind?

– Not all.

Is there any way for mankind to be saved?

– None. And yet men can save themselves.

How?

– By turning away from the world they have made, towards God. By remaking their small portion of the world. By love.

Love is no shield against nuclear weapons.

– The Devil’s victory is not won by nuclear weapons. Destruction does not come only by war. Real destruction comes from evil, and surrendering to evil. The enemies of mankind are not other men, but the Seven Deadly Sins. As it always was, so it is now, and always will be.

Are you saying there will be no Armageddon?

– I’m saying it will not necessarily be a war as you understand wars. The Devil is interested in attacking your soul, not your body. He attacks your body only if it serves his purpose. Usually he prefers to pamper bodies, and deprave minds. In the world’s wars men often attain to great virtue. Armageddon is a war of the Spirit, not of the Flesh.

FREE WILL

God gave man Free Will. When man uses it, and chooses wrong, do you want him to be excused the price?

But the offence is so small, and the price so vast.

– If you are on the edge of a high cliff, it only needs one step, and the result is death. Do you measure the step in inches, or by the resulting fall?

But why did God put man on a cliff’s edge?

– If man is to be raised up to God there must be an immense depth under him. If he falls, the fall must be immense.

THE DEAD

Can spiritualist mediums summon up the dead?

– Yes.

Is it wrong?

– Yes.

Do the dead really communicate with the living at these seances?

– Yes. It is possible.

But they seem always to say only stupid or commonplace things. Are they forbidden to say anything more?

– Yes. Very occasionally they say more. But only occasionally to a few individuals. Nothing is ever to be shown to men generally, or told to them, that carries complete conviction about life after death, or what kind of life that is. Man must always be left in doubt. Otherwise he would have no Free Will to choose. To believe or not to believe. He is shown enough, but not too much. He is left free to disbelieve. Men will disbelieve this book.

What about the apparitions of the Blessed Virgin?

– Men who wanted to disbelieve, disbelieved those. They saw the sun dance at Fatima, and disbelieved their eyes.

GOD’S LOVE

All that you have told me has a coldness about it, a terror. Or else a cold complexity, like an enormous puzzle. Is this really God’s creation?

– No. What is cold and complex is in yourself, in your lack of understanding. God’s real creation is filled with love. It is love, formed by love. Love is the heart and soul and body of it. God’s love for man is like a mother’s for a child, a lover for the beloved.

These are words. Where is the reality? I see children cold and hungry, 1 see them beaten; I see men dying of disease and wretchedness. I see them killed in wars. I see women in misery. I see animals cruelly ill-treated. I see the world laid waste. Where is God’s love?

– God’s love is shown in not destroying mankind.

But the innocent are destroyed. Who are the victims in the wars? Who are the victims in the world? Always the poor, and the meek, the defenceless and the innocent. Where is God’s love for them?

– In testing them, and bringing them to Him swiftly. The swiftest path is by suffering. I have told you that before.

But they do not want to be tested. They only want to be fed, and warmed, and made secure.

– If you believe that this world is the most important, then that is what you choose.

Choose when? When did these people ever have the chance of choosing?

– Before they were born. They chose the life they would have. Some made heroic choices. Some chose to have comfort.

So we should envy the poor, and the wretched?

– Blessed are the poor in spirit. Blessed are the meek. Do you remember?

But most of the poor and the wretched want only to become rich. Have they forgotten what they chose?

– Everyone forgets.

JESUS

Was Jesus really as tradition describes him? Tall and calm and beautiful, with brown hair and majestic features?

– No. He was small and dark, very swarthy, black haired, his eyes very dark. He was almost a dwarf, four feet six inches high. His right shoulder was hunched from using a plane. His eyebrows were thick and black and met above His nose, which was long and twisted to one side. His hands were square and strong, blunt- fingered. His feet were scarred from the roads. Only His eyes were beautiful. His teeth were crooked and too large for His mouth. His beard was thin and black, wispy. All His hair was thin and sparse. He looked a weakling. Only His hands were strong.

Did Jesus have any brothers or sisters?

– No.

Did He have half-brothers, the sons of Joseph, the carpenter?

– Yes. Four. By Joseph’s first marriage. One of them was James the Just, the only one to believe in Jesus and follow Him.

Then Joseph married twice?

– Yes. Then he divorced Mary for adultery, but continued to protect her, as his cousin.

Is the Flight into Egypt and all the Nativity story only a legend?

– As it applies to Jesus and the Blessed Virgin, yes. Jesus was born in Nazareth, in Mary’s house, the house of her parents.

Was it believed that she had been seduced?

– Yes. By the soldier, Ben Pandera.

Was this true?

– No.

This is going to offend everyone.

– That is why the real story was suppressed and altered. The Jews kept some account of it. That is one reason they were so persecuted in the Middle Ages and their books burned.

Is the Gospel account of Jesus’ later life and Ministry and death accurate?

– No.

Does it leave out anything of importance?

– Yes. That Jesus was afraid. All His life he was physically afraid of death, and pain. He tried to escape from what He knew would happen. He ran away. Traces of this are still there, in the Gospels, but only traces. He was arrested twice and the first time He escaped, and hid for a year. He had to force Himself to come back to Jerusalem. All the time He was in terror. God had given Him a coward’s heart.

Is there anything else left out?

– Nothing of significance.

Is there anything put in that is not true?

– Several things. But nothing that matters fundamentally. They were put in to create a legend.

There is the story of the rising in Jerusalem. Was it more important than the Gospels say? The rising led by Bar Abbas?

– Yes. It was a rising to make Jesus king. He was descended from David through his mother.

People believed in Him in spite of His being supposed to be illegitimate? Believed in Him as a real king?

– The poor didn’t care about His illegitimacy. It made Him nearer to them.

Did Jesus truly mean to become King of Israel, in the worldly sense?

– No. He ran away from His followers as much as from His enemies.

Is that why Judas betrayed Him?

– No. Judas was a thief. He betrayed Him for money. He had been a spy among Jesus’ followers from the beginning.

Was it a serious rising, to make Jesus king?

– Not very serious. Two or three days. A few people killed.

And the two ‘thieves’ were leaders of it, with Bar Abbas?

– Yes.

Is the story of His trial accurate?

– Yes. Except that in reality He was brought before Agrippa a year earlier, in Galilee. That is when He escaped, and hid. He came south to Jerusalem, and cleared the Temple. Then He left Jerusalem, and hid in the countryside.

Did He hide with the Essenes, at Qmran? And join the Brotherhood?

– Yes. And preached. But only in the countryside.

Did the Essenes believe He was the Messiah?

– Yes. It was they who persuaded Him to go to Jerusalem and let Himself be taken, and killed. When the people saw Him again they brought Him into Jerusalem as a king, and the rising began.

Did He rise from the dead, as the Gospels tell?

– Yes. He was the Son of God. He was God. First He conquered Himself. Then Death.

All the Gospels differ slightly as to details. Is one of them more accurate than the others?

– Yes. John.

Is John the Evangelist the disciple Jesus loved?

– Yes.

Was this a pure love?

– Yes.

Jesus said John would not die until Jesus came for him. Did this happen?

– Yes. On Patmos. As John was dying. Jesus appeared to him, and fetched his spirit away. He guided John in the writing of his Gospel and the Revelation.

THE ESSENES

Was Jesus the Suffering Servant looked for by the Essenes?

– Yes. By them and by others.

And Jesus became one of the Essenes?

– I have told you so.

Did the Essenes have a secret doctrine not shared with everyone?

– Yes.

Does it lie behind Jesus’ teaching?

– Yes.

Can it be recovered from the Gospels?

– No.

Is there any way to rediscover it?

– Yes. By prayer. By listening, as I have told you to listen. It

is hinted at in the Gospels, but under veils of parable and allusion.

Did any of the disciples and apostles we read of in the Gospels belong to the Essenes?

– Only John, the Beloved.

So it is not necessary for Salvation to Know the inner doctrine?

– For most people it is better not to know it. It would make their lives harder and their spiritual path more difficult. The Gospels and the Church’s teaching are enough.

But does the Church preserve the secret doctrine?

– Yes.

Do all priests or even all bishops know it?

– Not even all cardinals. But the Pope always knows it.

Yet you say Peter did not?

– He did not need to. He had known Our Lord. But when it became necessary it was revealed to his successor.

Are there Essenes now?

– Yes.

Within the Church?

– Yes.

Are they a recognisable order?

– No. They are individuals here and there who live as Essenes. Except for a few. The inmost few.

Are they always priests?

– No.

Is it of advantage to these individuals to be Essenes?

– I have told you. No. But it is of advantage to the world that they exist. The world needs them. It has a particular need of their prayers.

Do these Essenes recognise one another as Brothers?

– No. There are no secret signs. No order. Only individuals who possess the doctrine and live according to the rules. Except for that few I have spoken of.

Will you tell me the Doctrine? And the rules?

– No. If you were ready you would be told them.

By another Essene?

– No. By your Voice. It is the Voice that controls the Order. I have begun to tell you certain things and you have written them down. Be patient. The doctrine of reincarnation is part of this inner doctrine.

If it is written down it is no longer a secret.

– You have said yourself, who will believe it? Until it is believed it remains a secret. Some must know, and quickly. They must be persuaded to listen. You must write down enough to persuade them. I have told you already, the world is in great danger. It has need of Essenes. Let people read, and listen. Some will become Essenes.

The Gospel to read most carefully then is that of John?

– Yes. That of John whom Jesus loved above all the others. John the Essene, who looked after the Mother of God until She was assumed into Heaven.

You have spoken of a few Essenes who are exceptions.

– Yes. They are the real Order, the innermost Brotherhood.

Are there many?

– Only a few. Eleven. With Our Lord and Our Lady they are thirteen.

Are they men?

– And women. But not men as you know them. They are those who have chosen to remain in the world, to serve the world. That is their title, the Servants. The Servants of God.

And the Pope knows of them?

– That is the inner meaning of his title, the Servant of the Servants of God.

You say they are not men as I know men. Are they spirits?

– All men are spirits. These are great spirits, who could have left this world far behind. They have made this sacrifice. They live together, or their bodies live together, in a secret place. But when they need to they enter the world.

In their bodies?

– In any form they desire. They themselves have servants in the world.

Do they choose these servants?

– No. God chooses them.

Everything you tell me becomes harder to believe. This is like a story, like fantasy.

– I know. Only those will believe you who are ready to believe. The rest will think you have gone mad.

Do these servants of the Essenes know one another?

– No. In a few cases there are groups of them, and these groups continue in the same place for a long time. But they are not in touch with other groups. It is not like an order of monks or friars.

It still sounds like a secret order. There have always been legends that such an Order exists, and has its headquarters in a hidden place.

– These stories are hints and shadows of the truth. But they are not the truth.

Do these Essenes and their servants follow the rules of the original Essenes?

– Yes.

Are these rules of diet?

– Yes. Not to drink alcohol, or use any form of drug, or eat meat of any kind.

Do they marry?

– Yes.

Do they make love in a sexual way?

– No. Most of them are of an age when this is no longer important to them.

The innermost groupare they immortal?

– They live to be very old. When God takes one of them, he is replaced by another; by one of their servants from the world. This does not happen very often.

It sounds as strange as Flying Saucers, and as hard to believe.

– Flying Saucers exist.

FLYING SAUCERS

You say Flying Saucers exist?

– Yes.

Are they from other planets, from other solar systems?

– Yes.

Are the creatures in them human?

– Yes. Physically different and more intelligent, but they are like you in essence.

Are they good, or evil?

– Both, like you. Some of them mean to do you great harm.

Why?

– Because they are evil. Because they have given themselves to the Devil in exchange for great knowledge, and great power.

Are these evil ones here already, hidden among us?

– Yes, but not hidden. They can pass as human beings. They can use human beings.

Are all these creatures, the good and the evil ones, from the same place?

– No. From several places. They are exploring the Universe.

Have they been doing this for a long time?

– Yes.

Are our wars and disasters because of the evil ones among them?

– Some. Others you cause yourselves.

Are there human beings in touch with them?

– Yes. I have said. They use human beings to serve their purposes. Good or bad. The world already belongs to them, as a colony belongs to a conquering power.

As spirits, apart from their scientific knowledge, are they more powerful than we are?

– Yes. That is why they are here. To use your strength for themselves, if they are evil. To help you if they are good. It is like a colonisation, I have just said, only on a higher level.

Do our governments know this?

– Some of them.

Could we drive these creatures away?

– No. They are far too strong. What saves you is the conflict between themselves.

A hundred years ago men saw and described flying objects, but in 19th century terms, like airships. Were these objects real?

– They saw them in terms they could understand. Their minds translated what their eyes saw into more familiar shapes. It has always been like that.

Are we seeing the reality?

– Yes. You are near enough to them in Science to see it properly.

Does their existence alter our own real existence, the purpose for which we are born?

– No. They are a part of it. If a Country is colonised the inhabitants have the same ultimate purposes and duties, to do good and avoid evil and seek for God. It is simply that the Universe is far more complex than men have so far understood.

Are there some human beings, the Essenes for example, who are as spiritually powerful as these Colonisers?

– Yes. But very few. That is one reason why the Essenes are vital to mankind.

BREAD

Is the bread we eat important?

– Yes. In both a physical and a spiritual sense. The Essenes for instance eat only unleavened bread.

Is leaven, yeast, harmful?

– It makes hearing and seeing more difficult. If you wish to see properly with the inner eye you could not eat yeast bread.

As between the different grains for bread, is one better than another?

– Rye is the best, for physical benefits. Wheat is the least valuable. Most white bread has no value and is severely harmful. The order of value is Rye, Barley, Maize, Oats, Wheat.

ON MERIT

To accumulate merit is like accumulating money. It is useless until you spend it. This is what Paul meant when he said ‘If you have not charity’. If you have not love: love is the way of spending merit.

ON SIN

Sin is a disease of the mind. To encourage sinful habits, to commit sin knowingly, is like infecting one’s own body knowingly with leprosy, or with cancer. It is not that God will punish us. We are already punishing ourselves. There is no other punishment. There could be no worse punishment.

ON DESTINIES

You have told me that minds or souls ‘choose’ their lives before they are born. I can imagine someone choosing a life of poverty or illness in order to shorten their path to God. But some lives are so brutal, so ugly, so apparently deprived of all chance of grace, that surely no one could have chosen to be like that?

– No soul chooses to be brutal or devoid of grace. These things are the result of their actions and choices during their lives.

But some people are so stupid, so uneducated, they have never heard of grace, or seen anything but brutality. Is this a fault in them?

– When they are born they carry in them the faults and characteristics of their previous existences. It is not a sign of merit to become a human being. It is merely one stage in a long journey.

This is the doctrine of the Hindus. Surely it destroys all compassion for the unfortunate?

– Why should it?

Because You are saying that if a man is stupid and ugly and brutal it is his fault, for the way he behaved in some earlier existence.

– I did not mention ugliness. This by itself could be a sign of merit. Stupidity, like imbecility, could sometimes be a sign of great grace. As for brutality, does that really deserve sympathy? The word itself is a contradiction. Few animals, few brutes deserve that description. If a man is brutal it is usually his deliberate choice. But you are persisting in regarding your present life as a separate, whole existence. It is not. It is like regarding a traveller as a different man in one town from the man he was in another. If he was of such a character in London, he will be much the same character when he reaches Rome, or New York. If he was a thief in London he will still be dishonest in Rome. You would not say “How unfortunate, how unfair, that this man should arrive in Rome with a bad character already allotted to him.” It is a matter of accepting the fact that all men have existed long before they were born into their present lives.

ON DEATH

Is death the moment of judgement that we have been told it is?

– No.

What happens?

– The mind, the group or ‘real’ mind of which the living individual has been a part, gathers in the spirit of the individual. And is helped forward towards perfection, or dragged backwards, away from perfection, by the condition of that spirit. To use a materialistic simile, it is as though someone has invested a sum of money, and after a time realises the investment, making a profit or a loss.

Are there no angels waiting for the good? Or devils for the bad?

– No. It is during your lifetime that the devils and angels are concerned with you. During all your lives. As a man, as a creature, as any sort of being.

You have told me of devils attacking the human spirit. You have shown me some of them. Do they attack the Mind, that you call the Real Mind?

– Yes. But indirectly, through the individual minds that form its totality.

And the human spirit, the lives the spirit endures, are themselves created by these group or Real Minds?

– Yes. God created a Mind in His own image. The Mind of Adam. This Mind contained the totality of Mankind, male and female, every human being who would ever live. Every mind that would exist was contained in the Mind that you know as Adam. Every mind shared in Adam’s disobedience. And was condemned, was self-condemned, to regain perfection, to return to God, by means of the wheel of existence. God had made a perfect world, in which every creature, every plant, everything was perfect. Man, Adam, destroyed that perfection. It is man’s task to restore it. To do that he must remake, recreate, all things, all creatures, all types of being. The Real Mind that lies behind each human being is engaged in this task of recreation, of recreating within itself the lost perfection, the lost paradise. The Devil and His servants cannot touch these Real Minds, except through the beings the Real or Group Minds bring into existence. The Real Minds create as they themselves were created, by the original Mind.

Is this original Mind God?

– No. I have said. It was created by God. By disobedience it lost perfection, and became a myriad of minds, each complete in itself, an image of the originally created Mind, of Adam. Humanity’s task is to become Adam once more, to recover unity as a new Adam, and then to recover union between Adam and God. Death, in a human sense, is merely a step on this journey back to perfection.

I doubt if I understand any of this.

– I doubt if you do.

Is Adam the same as Christ?

– No! God became Christ to redeem Adam.

And was Eve part of Adam?

– I have said, all mankind was and is part of Adam.

But Eve is described as issuing from Adam’s flesh. Is there a deep meaning in this image?

– Yes. Woman and man are part of one another. Each Real Mind is both male and female, it is a union of two elements, two qualities. And the force that holds those two elements together is itself a third element, so that each Real Mind is a Trinity reflecting the Divine Trinity. I have told you, God created man in His own image. You have thought of it as God having man’s features, in a nobler form. It is not like that at all. God is a Trinity. God made man as a Trinity.

But one person of the Divine Trinity is the Son. In the human, the created Trinity, is there a son, or a child? Father, mother, child?

– Yes.

Are you telling me that each human being I see is really a Trinity? Each man, each woman, each child? That everyone of us contains three persons?

– Yes. I keep telling you. But each human being you see is not a complete being, not a totality. Each individual human being is merely part of something greater. Part of a greater Real Mind.

How many individuals make up a real mind? Three?

– No. Many! Several hundred.

Does this mean I have no true individual existence? That I am like a fragment of a greater being?

– You are a fragment of a greater being

When I die, will I cease to be an individual, cease to have an individual consciousness?

– No. You will share in the consciousness of the mind that in a sense governs you and that created you as you are. You were created by it and out of it and will return to it, having served it well or badly. The knowledge of how badly, or how well, will be your punishment or reward. And will help to determine the next stage in your journey. Imagine a flock of birds flying. Imagine the whole flock possessing a mind that is the flock, and of which each bird is a part. But not only a part; in one sense each bird is and possesses the entire mind of the flock. It is directed by it, knows its thoughts and purposes. Each bird has a task, to fly here or there in search of food, discover a new nesting place, watch for enemies. Each bird performs its task well or ill, returns to the flock and is sent out again. It is not an exact image, but it may help you to grasp the reality. The reality is the flock of birds, and not the individual bird, yet each bird contains within it all the essential reality of the flock.

THE TRINITY

You have told me that each individual man is a Trinity, of Mind and Self and Soul, and also that each Real Mind is multiple and not single. That it is like a flock of birds.

– Or a hive of bees.

But not a Trinity?

– Yes. The Real Mind is also a Trinity, in its essence. There is the Mind, and there is the energy, the force that creates its many selves, and that is its Soul, and there are the Selves that the Mind creates, that in essence are only one Self made many. The Trinity is the fundamental concept of the Universe. Of the Spiritual Universe, the real Universe. Just as the atom, which is multiple, is the fundamental concept of the physical universe. Within the atom there is its whole substance, and the force that holds it together, and its ‘parts’, nucleus, neutron, proton. An atom that is ‘split’ into its parts ceases to have meaning. And as you can trace the structure of the atom, reflected in the solar system, in the galaxy, in the Universe itself, so you can see the Trinity reflected in the individual creature, in the Real Minds of which each creature is a part, and ultimately in the Divine Trinity which created all things. Mind, Soul, Self. Father, Son, Holy Ghost. One reflects the other.

REAL MINDS

You speak of Real Minds creating individual human beings. Are we not created by God?

– Of course you are. Your reality lies in the Real Mind of which you are a part. That is created by God. Your temporary human self, is a creation of your own Real Mind. What God creates is perfect. The imperfect beings you see round you are your own creations.

Should we look in the world round us for Super Beings, the whole selves of Real Minds?

– No. At this stage of existence that cannot be. The Self must still be divided into many.

The great company of individuals I once saw in a vision, each carrying a pale light like a candle flame, slowly making its way upwards towards an invisible goal, yet somehow triumphant, was that a Real Mind, a Real Self, both one and many?

– Yes.

The Beings you have told me of who come from other solar systems – are they Real Selves?

– No. Merely stronger, more advanced individuals. What I have said about the Real Mind and the individual is true also of them. Only that the Real Minds of which they are parts have learned to release more of their energy into the selves they create.

Is there a level of existence at which the Real Mind creates a single Self, a true Trinity?

– Yes. But that is near the end of the journey. It will be a long way before you need to concern yourself with that.

The multiple, the many individuals forming part of a Real Mind – do these individuals recognise one another in any subconscious way?

– Yes. You meet someone who is instantly sympathetic, or significant for you. You speak of love at first sight. Or the sympathy or significance comes to you slowly. But it is still there.

Is it useful to look for these sympathies and develop them?

– Yes. In the right way. That is with your intelligence and with love.

And is marriage a significant part of this?

– Yes. The most significant.

Yet many marriages are failures. Some are grotesque.

– I spoke of intelligence and love. If these are absent the marriage will fail.

Do you mean a stupid man cannot make a good marriage?

– He must bring all the intelligence, all the mind and understanding that he possesses, all the love, and devote them to the marriage. So must the woman. If they do that it will be enough.

So a divorce is a failure?

– Would you regard it as a success?

And a priest – who never marries – is he cut off from this means of union within the Real Mind of which he is a part?

– Yes. But he has other means of union, just as important.

People speak of marriages ‘made in heaven’ and of ‘twin souls’. Is there for each individual only one perfect partner?

– No partner is perfect, just as no individual is perfect. But to be successful a marriage has to he made within the group of selves to which both partners belong.

But if they do not recognise one another and do not know about groups of souls?

– Their sympathies, their intelligence, should tell them, unless they are blinded by appetites that have little to do with marriage.

You mean lust?

– Or greed for possessions, or anything that is not a marriage of mind as well as body, of soul as well as mind. Marriage should not he like buying new clothes.

Is divorce ever good?

– In the form of an annulment, yes. If the marriage has been a bad one. But people who make a bad marriage are likely to make a second one just as bad.

This disagrees with the teaching of the Church.

– No. The Church annuls certain marriages, so far as It can judge by externals that they are not true marriages. I am saying the same thing. A bad marriage is not a true one. It can be dissolved. But it is not to be lightly done. Marriage should not be lightly entered on. Or lightly ended.

THE SABBATH

Should we keep the Sabbath holy?

– Yes. And more than what you call the Sabbath. From dusk on Saturday to dawn on Monday belongs to God. You should do no unnecessary work, no work that is for your own private profit. Only work for the community or work essential for the well-being of others.

Can we enjoy ourselves during this period?

– That is what God wants. That you should recreate yourselves. But by wise enjoyment. Good reading, relaxation, play. Not vile amusements. Not debauchery. You should enjoy yourselves in the true sense. Fill yourselves with joy for the coming week of labour.

SUPER MINDS

Some individuals in the world appear to have supernatural power. Is this true?

– No. There is nothing that is Supernatural anywhere. Only the not yet known.

But they can do things impossible for other people?

– Yes. They have discovered powers within themselves that all men and women possess but have not yet found. For the most part these powers are unimportant, like conjuring tricks. They have little value.

Have they anything in common with the hearing and seeing and spirit travelling you have told me of?

– No.

Or with the beings from other solar systems?

– No. They are like people who are double-jointed, or exceptionally athletic. It is not worth discussing among the things I am describing to you.

SOULS

After what you have told me about the Real Mind, the Total Mind behind each of us; and of the companies of souls to which we belong, I feel diminished. I feel I am no longer an individual, only a part of something, of no real significance.

– You have not understood. I am telling you that you, and every human being, has a far greater importance than you have ever realised. You are a much greater being than the small creature with four limbs and two eyes that you think of as yourself. You are legion.

I cannot take this in.

– It does not matter whether you understand or not. It is so. Try to understand. It is a consolation if you can. It explains to you many things you have thought of as Divine Injustice. Individuals who are born blind or crippled, or unfortunate; who live short lives or wretched ones; who seem to have no chance of salvation; you are seeing only a small part of the whole to which they belong. Their wretchedness serves a purpose, from which they themselves benefit.

It is still hard to understand.

– Only if you look at the individual as an isolated creature, a fragment with no contact with a greater whole. Do you say ‘my foot is unhappy because it always walks on the ground, and sees nothing’?

My foot has no separate consciousness.

– I am offering you an image, an allegory. All allegories are incomplete. And how do you know your foot has no consciousness?

I would remain myself if it was amputated.

– Not quite. And the Mind to which you belong would survive if you were amputated from it, by irredeemable sin and folly. May that never be. Yet it is possible. You must strive to understand that the You of which you are conscious in this world is only a part of the real You. Your true Self, your true Mind, your true Spirit or Soul, is vastly greater. I am not diminishing you. I am trying to make you understand your greatness. All men’s greatness. All women’s. The greatness of Mankind.

ANTI-MATTER

You have compared the spiritual world with its Trinities of form to the world of matter, of atoms. Is there an anti-world, of antimatter?

– Yes. An anti-universe exists, devoted to evil, and the pursuit of evil, as the material world is devoted to good and the pursuit of good. The material world belongs to God. The world, the universe, of anti-matter, belongs to the Devil. The two cannot co-exist, but destroy one another where they meet. It is a reflection of the struggle between Good and Evil.

RE INCARNATION

Are men’s souls ever reborn as men or women again, as many people believe?

– No. Where a human being appears to remember another life as a human being it is because the Mind or Spirit of that earlier being is in touch with the living person.

But you told me that the dead do not come back to haunt the living. That there are no ghosts.

– These are not ghosts, but memories transferred to the living by a form of telepathy, usually for a reason.

What reason?

– Sometimes to secure Justice. Sometimes such memories hang like echoes in the air. Just as ‘ghosts’ are visual impressions printed on space, so these ‘memories of earlier lives’ are impressions printed in a different fashion on a different medium. A sensitive or sensitised mind may pick them up, like a radio receiving a distant broadcast by a freak of the air waves.

OTHER RELIGIONS AND THE INNER TRUTH

You told me that only the Catholic religion contains the real truth?

– Yes.

When you said that, did you mean the inner truth of which you have also told me?

– Yes. Other religions contain parts of the truth.

But no other religion has this inner truth?

– No.

Is this inner truth known only to the Essenes you have told me about?

– No. Other men know it.

Is it written down?

– No. It is passed from mind to mind.

Are you willing to tell any of it to me so I can write it down?

– Yes. You are already writing it down. This book is the inner truth.

Why do you want it written now?

– I have told you. The world, mankind, are both in danger.

But how can the things you have told me help anyone, let alone mankind?

– They can help individuals to live better. They can help them to understand why they are here, and why the world is as it is. They can help them to understand God’s Will towards them.

But no one will believe it.

– No one believed the prophets.

They will not believe that I am a prophet. They will think I have invented everything.

– I know.

And even if a few believed, how would that help to turn away disasters?

– Read the story of Sodom and Gomorrah. God said that if he found ten just men in Sodom lie would not destroy the city.

Does God mean to destroy the world now?

– Perhaps. Or perhaps He means only to allow men to destroy it. It will come to the same thing.

You have told me You are God. Yet you speak of God in the third person, as someone separate from yourself. Are you truly God?

– I am a part of God. I speak of Him as someone else because I am speaking of the Totality of the Trinity. I am a fragment of God, Who speaks to you. And yet I am God.

THE CHURCH AND WOMEN

If the Church possesses the truth, is it perfect?

– No. It is human as well as divine and therefore imperfect.

It is accused of debasing the condition of women. Is this true? Has It debased women, as men’s servants and inferiors?

– Yes.

How can God have allowed this to happen, and how can a true Church have allowed it to happen, while pretending to honour the Blessed Virgin?

– Because the Church is imperfect, and It reflects Its surroundings. Only the inmost, essential truth is always preserved. For the rest, the Church is human, subject to error, folly, sin, wrong doing. But if the Church had never existed women would be no better off. Men have treated women as they wished to treat them. The Church condoned this. It did not cause it.

Some people say the Church did cause it. They quote St. Paul as a chief offender.

– St. Paul reflected his time and place. And he told men to honour their wives as well as telling wives to honour their husbands. Men have taken from the Church’s teaching what suited their desires, and have neglected the rest.

Do you believe in the equality of women? The liberation of women?

– Yes.

Do you believe that women should have the same freedom as men? In sex, for example.

– I believe both men and women should obey the same rules, and practise the same self-control, and restraint.

Do you believe that contraception can be justified?

– Yes. But not in order to make sex a debauchery, like drinking too much. You would need to define the concept of justification.

Do you believe sex is for having children? And only that?

– Yes.

And do you disapprove of all sex that does not create children?

– No. But that is its primary purpose. Just as the primary purpose of food is to preserve life and health, not to stimulate appetite. To take pleasure in good food is legitimate, but not to the point of greed or gluttony. It is the same with sex. A couple may enjoy sex as a bond, as a reinforcement of their love, but they must be wise in sex as in everything else. And many forms of contraception harm the woman.

But if a couple feel they cannot have a child now without harming their marriage? May they use a material type of contraception? A pill, a sheath, or anything of that kind? Without being guilty of sin?

– No. They should use restraint. That is the only form of contraception that is truly justified.

No one will accept this today.

– I know.

Many authorities say that restraint in sex is harmful, that it embitters the woman particularly. Even nuns, who have emotional counter balances, are believed to become embittered in some cases, to suffer delusions or simply to become ill through repressed desires. Can this be good?

– Yes. You are looking at the world from a wrong point of view, as an end and not a means. I have told you often, the world is one stage on a long journey. Hardship here is of benefit at the true end of the journey. It is not good that a woman, or a man, should become ill through repressed desires. But it is good that they should learn to control their desires without becoming ill.

You are asking for everyone to become a saint.

– Yes. That is their purpose in this world.

THE SOUL

A man’s soul is from God, and is of God. It is God, as the Host at Communion is God. It is not a part or a fragment of God, but God in His entirety. It is given to the Mind when the Mind is created by God. God breathes on the Mind and the Mind is given life. The life is the Soul, the Soul is the life of the Mind. With the Soul the Mind creates a Self, and then many selves. And the Soul binds Mind and Self together and becomes one with them as the Divine Trinity is both Three and One, bound into Oneness by the Holy Spirit.

It is the Mind’s purpose in existence to preserve the Soul it has been given, to preserve and renew and strengthen its Soul’s perfection through all the lives that the Mind creates by means of the Soul, and at last to return the Soul to God, as a river returns to the sea. At that last moment the Soul will bind the Mind to God in perfect Union, as through time it has bound the Mind to Self. The Soul is Life, and Force, and Creation. It is Union.

You have told me that the Mind survives, even as fragments, no matter what happens, but that the Soul and the Self may be lost. Can a part of God be lost?

– Yes! That is the Devil’s hope and purpose, to steal God from God, to destroy God utterly.

THE SELF AND THE MIND-EVOLUTION

Before God created matter, He created Mind. When the Mind achieved consciousness its first desire was to become aware of its Self. To become self-conscious, self-aware. By the force of the life, the soul breathed into it by God, it created its own image. This was of an almost formless simplicity, a mere floating awareness of being alive, like plankton floating on the surface of the sea. Of the cells of life floating in infinity.

As desire, as awareness grew, the Mind created a more complex Self. In the physical world this Self was expressed as livings beings, animals, plants, man. Not one, but many; one of each kind, and then many of each kind. So that through the Mind, God created the Material Universe. As the Mind created, thought, of a new image, a new idea, this idea took on a material shape and form and substance. One idea evolved into another.

Did the Mind create minds for each of these created selves?

– Yes. And God breathed on each new created mind and gave it life, and the possibility of a Self. God’s breath is the soul that dwells in every creature.

But the Mind created the lesser minds? It was not God Who created them?

– The lesser minds are no more than seeds scattered by the Primal Mind, yet each seed is whole, is not only a mind, but is the Mind.

Does each plant, each creature, however small and simple, possess a mind and soul and self?

– Yes. Each is an image created by the Mind, and so, by God. It is immortal. Yet not in the physical shape you see with your ordinary eyes. In its spiritual shape it is immortal, and part of the Mind, and it must return at last to the Mind. Eternity, Heaven, is when all created minds return to the Primal Mind, all Souls, all Selves, return to it, and in perfection contemplate Perfection, contemplate God.

Is there then only God and Mind?

– No. God is a Trinity. Mind is a Trinity. But the third Person of each Trinity is the same, one with the other, the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit which binds God the Father to God the Son, the Holy Spirit which is Mary, is also the Soul breathed by God into Mind, by which Mind created its Self, and selves. Mary therefore is not only the Mother of God but the Mother of Man, of all things, of all Creation. And this Creation is both many and one. It is one Mind and many Selves. All the minds, all the selves of every kind that have ever existed, are part of the Primal Mind, of the Primal Self, that has spent and will spend all of Time evolving towards Perfection.

And where is the Fall of Man in this evolution?

– In the rebellion of Mind against its Creator. In its desire to be independent of God. To go against God’s Will. Every creature shared in this rebellion. Not only man but every being.

You told me that I am part of a large group of human beings, that you call my Real Mind, which itself is part of a larger real mind. Is there a hierarchy of minds, from the least, upwards to the greatest, the Primal Mind?

– Yes. And each is a Trinity, and each contains in itself the whole of Creation, as the seed contains the tree. As the tree contains the forest.

There seems to be a coldness about this whole conception, like looking too long at the space between the stars. It is repellent to a human being.

– Because you cannot see that the space between is filled with God’s love, that God’s love for His Creation holds it in being, that Infinity, Eternity, are the vibration, the trembling of God’s love for the Primal Mind and all that has come from it. It is God’s, and He holds it as a man might hold a bird between his hands, as a lover holds a lover. The Universe burns with God’s love. The stars are the fires and jewels of it. That space between the stars is filled with music, the singing of the stars, of the Galaxies. What you see as stars, as eyes of fire in the dark, are in reality the images of God’s holy angels.

And are the angels part of the Primal Mind?

– No. They share God’s mind.

Was there a Fall of Satan and his angels?

– Yes. They are the dark stars.

Will they one day return to God?

– Yes.

Even Satan himself?

– Yes. Nothing must be lost. The force of the Spirit that is in Satan, the Mind that is in Satan. Those must return. As for the Self that Satan has created, that is another question. That may dissolve and become nothingness. If Satan’s soul were to be lost that would be tragedy.

So that all that can be lost is the Self of any creature?

– No. If it persists in disobedience, in rebellion, if it becomes wholly evil, then its soul will become too weak to hold it in being, and both will dissolve. The Self alone may be lost, or Self and Soul together. Only the Mind cannot be lost entirely.

You say ‘if the Self becomes too weak through becoming wholly evil’ – is evil not strong?

– No. Evil is ultimately weak. As darkness is weak. The deepest darkness must yield to the smallest light. As the light grows, the darkness dissolves. As perfection grows, as souls and selves and minds return perfected to the Primal Mind, then the darkness of evil is put to rout, it dissolves like the night when the sun rises. Then those selves that have given their being to the darkness will dissolve with it, and vanish for ever.

There is no Hell then? No place of eternal punishment?

– No. Nothingness is the punishment. Nothingness has no place. And it is not a punishment inflicted by God, but a result of rebellion, brought on its own being by the rebellious Self.

All this is very far from the teachings of the Church.

– No. This is the teaching of the Church.

And all your talk of Primal Mind, and Selves and Souls? Of the Primal Mind rebelling, and then evolving towards renewed Perfection? Is that the teaching of the Church?

– Read the Book of Genesis. Try to understand it.

THE FRAMEWORK

You talk of God’s love, but how can I feel it in this construction of Mind and Soul and Self, of human beings who in Reality look like complex wheels of fire, and contain within themselves animals and plants? I understand none of it.

– If you understood the Reality you would do more than love it. You would adore it, worship it. You are like a child learning the scales on a piano. He looks at the black and white notes, tries to memorise their names and understand the meaning of octaves and chords and harmonies, and wonders what these things have to do with music. And being a child, even if he could make the leap towards understanding, how much would he grasp of Beethoven? Of Brahms? Of Mozart? Of Bach? You must be patient. I shall give you visions. Of the past and the future. Of other lives. You have asked to see. I will make you see.

What past? What future?

– Yours. The world’s. And something of the harmony, the music that the notes make when they are truly understood.

THE SOUL

I will tell you again about the soul. It is a seed within the Mind. It nourishes the Mind and is nourished by the Mind. It contains within its being the whole of life, the whole of God’s being. As the Host at the Communion is the whole of God and not a part, so is the soul the entirety of God, of the Holy Spirit. It is both God’s ambassador and God Himself. There is no difference. It penetrates the Mind as the seed penetrates the egg, and fertilises it, brings it to awareness, to true Life. And as it penetrates the Mind, so it helps to create and penetrates the Self. And each of the many selves of the Mind. As the sea flows into every inlet, yet remains ‘the sea’ and not a part of the sea, so the soul flows into every self, into every being, and brings it Life, and the hope of Perfection. God is within every being, within every creature. God is not the creature, nor the being, but is the life within them. God is Life. Life is God. Life and Soul are one. Life is the Union between God and Man, God and Creation.

THE FRAMEWORK

You talk of God’s love, but how can I feel it in this construction of Mind and Soul and Self, of human beings who in Reality look like complex wheels of fire, and contain within themselves animals and plants? I understand none of it.

– If you understood the Reality you would do more than love it. You would adore it, worship it. You are like a child learning the scales on a piano. He looks at the black and white notes, tries to memorise their names and understand the meaning of octaves and chords and harmonies, and wonders what these things have to do with music. And being a child, even if he could make the leap towards understanding, how much would he grasp of Beethoven? Of Brahms? Of Mozart? Of Bach? You must be patient. I shall give you visions. Of the past and the future. Of other lives. You have asked to see. I will make you see.

What past? What future?

– Yours. The world’s. And something of the harmony, the music that the notes make when they are truly understood.

NUCLEAR ENERGY

Is nuclear energy, the nuclear bomb, dangerous for the world?

– Yes. It threatens disaster.

But surely we need the energy, to replace oil and coal?

– No.

What can we use when oil and coal are exhausted?

– Solar energy, wind power, water power. A simpler life that needs less energy.

But this is to walk back into the past.

– On your present road there is no future. The danger is not only, not chiefly, war, but pollution. Already most of the food you eat is dangerously polluted.

But these things are tested for danger and are declared safe.

– Who tests them? How do they know what is dangerous, what the results will be after twenty or thirty more years of poison from nuclear waste and fallout?

How can I answer that?

– No one can. I am telling you, you are going towards disaster.

You say foods are poisoned. All foods?

– No. Some are still safe. Some are less dangerous than others.

Which are most dangerous?

– Meat. All animals that graze are eating poison. And farmers are infecting animals with other poisons, antibiotics, worm-doses, medicines they do not properly understand.

And fish?

– Fish is poisoned with mercury. The bigger the fish, the more dangerous to eat it. But all fish are now dangerous.

You say ‘animals that graze’. Are poultry, game birds dangerous?

– Not so dangerous, although battery hens are not good to eat, nor their eggs. They too are poisoned by chemicals and unmeasured medicines. Birds that peck their food from the ground and their eggs are still safe enough.

Are fruits safe?

– No. Fruits with fine skins can be dangerous. Some absorb poison, nuclear fallout, insecticides. Apples for example are usually poisonous to the core. Pears also, to a lesser extent. If you cook pears they should be safe, but apples, no.

You say fruit with fine skins – are plums dangerous?

– No. Their flesh is of a different kind. It does not absorb poison so easily. And most berry fruits are safe for the same reason.

Is milk safe to drink?

– No. Even if it has been pasteurised it should still be boiled.

And cheese? Butter? Yoghurt?

– They are still safe.

How about bread? And cereals?

– I have already told you rye is the best to eat. Then barley. Then oats. Wheat last of all.

Is this because of poisoning?

– Yes.

By insecticides?

– And nuclear effects. Wheat absorbs them most easily. Rye least.

Vegetables? Are they safe?

– Yes. Depending on how much insecticide has been used on them and what fertilisers.

Are fertilisers bad?

– No. But some include dangerous hormones and stimulants. Natural manure and natural compost are much the best.

Are insecticides bad?

– No. In moderation. Ideally you would allow birds and other insects to control the pests. But the chief danger is still from nuclear discharges into the atmosphere. Men do not know the level at which danger begins.

What level is that?

– At once.

But even in nature there is radiation. There are radioactive materials, radiation from outer space. Man’s addition is minute, so far.

– It is still too great. The radiation in nature is carefully balanced. You are upsetting the balance.

But in natural conditions, some men receive more radiation than others. They live near deposits of uranium for example.

– You will find that nature compensates for that, in their diet, in many ways. Until they interfere with their own natural conditions.

You say things in nature are carefully balanced. By whom? God?

– No. The world is a living organism. You are part of it. It balances itself, unless you make that impossible. Then you will die.

The world is alive?

– I have told you before. The earth, the planets, the stars, they are storehouses of life.

Do they have minds and souls as we do?

– No. Again, I have told you. They are the images, the reflections of the angels.

The world is an angel?

– Yes, in the same sense that you are the body and limbs you see in the mirror. This is not a very deep or real sense.

And the moon?

– Yes.

Yet the moon is dead. It gives no light of its own. Supports no life. Is its angel dead?

– No. It reflects the sun.

But some planets die, break up into asteroids. Stars die and explode, or become dead stars, black stars. Are these dead angels?

– Sometimes. They have followed evil and dissolved. Satan recreates them and reuses their energy in other forms. Only the material refuse remains.

But if the moon is dead?

– It is there to light mankind in the darkness. It is not dead.

You say the angels do not have minds and souls of their own. Yet you said all Creation is in the form and image of the Trinity. Are they exceptions?

– No. They are expressions of the Divine Trinity. They share God’s Soul and Mind, are emanations from and of the Trinity.

Yet some rebelled. Did God rebel against Himself?

– Yes.

This is beyond all understanding.

– No. As God created many divine Selves there was jealousy and division among them.

Then these Selves were independent? They had Free Will?

– Yes.

Yet you still say they are different from man?

– No. They are superior. The angels, good and evil, share the divine nature. All that they do and are is part of the divine nature. Man is separate. He possesses human nature. He is not divine but only the image of the divine. There is nothing new or strange in this. Draw a circle. Divide it by a cross.

The upper half is the divine nature. The lower half is man’s nature. Shade one quarter of the circle, in the upper half. That is the rebellious part of the divine nature, Satan’s rebellion against God. Shade the opposite quarter in the lower half. That is the part of human nature won away from God by Satan. The cross is the sign of man’s redemption, joining man to God. It is no more than a symbol, but it is a symbol of the truth, and of many aspects of the truth.

THE HOLY SHROUD

You have told me that Jesus was a small man, very dark, with a hunched shoulder. The Shroud of Turin, the Holy Shroud, shows a man six feet tall, with a king’s face, as we have always imagined Jesus to be. Is the Shroud a lie?

– Yes.

Do you wish to tell me how it came into existence?

– No. I wish only that people should know how Jesus really was when he was on earth. He looked as I have told you. It was His humility to choose such an appearance. He belonged to the humble and the poor and the disfigured, not to the kings.

ETERNITY

When time comes to an end in Eternity, does all change, all movement also come to an end? Is Eternity like a still photograph, when a film comes to an end?

– No. When a film comes to an end, the film remains. In Eternity all that has ever been, remains; all that is, that there has ever been, of good. All that has ever been possible of good remains. Eternity is not only timeless, it is Infinite. It contains all of Perfection, of every kind. One cannot set any limit to Eternity, or Infinity.

But you set a limit to it, by saying all that there is of good, excluding the bad. And by saying all of Perfection, excluding the Imperfect.

– The bad, evil, ceases to exist with time. It has no meaning outside of time, as darkness has no meaning in the light. This is not a limitation on Eternity; it is its nature. Just as Perfection is its nature. It is not a limitation on Eternity that it contains only Perfection, and no Imperfection. Perfection is itself infinite, all embracing. Imperfection has limits, to make it less than perfect. Perfection is without limits. If it possessed limits it would not be perfect. Eternity, Infinity, are expressions of God’s nature. They contain all that is real. With the end of time, which is itself unreal, evil and imperfection cease to have any shadow of reality, any possibility of existence.

All this is only a form of words. Is there life, is there joy and happiness in Eternity?

– What is the highest pleasure men know?

Love.

– If you can imagine Perfect Love, that is Eternity. It is being made free of the Mind of God.

But how can these things be told to people who have not enough to eat? Surely they are only for the comfortable, who already believe, or have time to think?

– A starving man may be closer to God than a well fed one.

But a starving man will not read this book.

– I have just told you, he may not need to. There is a mission to the overfed, as well as to the hungry. The hungry are already in God’s keeping. Look to the rich and tell them.

ON JESUS

He is still in the world. He has always been, since the Resurrection.

You mean, as a man? That He did not ascend into Heaven?

– No. He ascended as God and man. And yet He left behind Him His Spirit, His Self. And this Self of His, this Spirit, can be a friend to everyone who desires it.

You mean, the Holy Spirit?

– No. I mean the real Self, the real Presence of Jesus.

But this is only priests’ talk. The real Presence. It means nothing to ordinary people. Church words. Nothing more.

– And yet it is real. As real as meeting another man.

Do you mean that in the same way as I would, if I said “My brother is real”?

– Yes.

And I could hear His voice, speaking aloud? See Him face to face? Touch His hand?

– Yes.

I might see Him walk into this room? Hear His footstep? See His shadow? That is what I mean by real.

– Yes. All those things. Only believe enough and you will see them. And hear them. And touch. Like any other man you know.

I think if it happened I should die.

– Would you die of fear if you saw the Devil?

No. At least I think not.

– Do you fear Jesus more than the Devil?

No.

– Do you believe in Him less than in the Devil?

No. Or again I think not. But if I heard His footsteps on the stairswould He still carry the Five Wounds? Do they still bleed?

– No. They are only scars now. Except on Good Friday. They reopen then and bleed for an hour or so.

What you are telling me seems beyond all reason, like a ghost story or a fairy tale. You mean He could appear to different people in different places, and be real and whole to each of them?

– This is what I have been telling you from the beginning. One can be many. Many can be one. Each Host at each Communion is wholly God, real and entire. This is only another form of the Host. No more real. No less.

But why? How? Who has ever seen Him?

– No one. But He is there. Look, and you will see a man longing for a friend.

He has a hundred million friends.

– Then they must let Him be real to them.

OUR LADY

What was the Virgin Mary like in her lifetime? What was her appearance?

– She was a small woman. Taller than her son, but not tall. Her hair was dark, dark brown, and her eyes very dark also.

Was she beautiful?

– No. Handsome rather than beautiful. She had fine hands and feet.

What does ‘handsome’ mean, in her case?

– She had a look of aristocracy. She was of the House of David, of the Royal House. She looked like that. As a princess should look, although her family was poor. Full cheekbones, full mouth, firm chin, strong nose, a look of calmness.

Was her family very poor?

– No. They had enough. They were comfortable.

You have said Joseph divorced her. Did her parents turn against her?

– No. They believed she had been taken against her will and was ashamed to confess it. They supported her. As Joseph did – he was her cousin.

What happened to the child? Immediately, while He was still small?

– Joseph supported Him. He would not acknowledge Him as his own son, but he helped Mary with all that was needed. With money and protection.

Was it a scandal in their neighbourhood?

– Yes.

And afterwards?

– It was always a reproach to Jesus, that he was illegitimate. Or was believed to be. That He had no father. That was part of the meaning when he called Himself Bar Abbas, the Son of the Father. He turned the reproach into a claim.

Bar Abbas? The same name as the thief, the bandit who was released at the Passover instead of Jesus?

– Yes. They were linked together from the beginning. Bar Abbas was illegitimate.

During the childhood of Jesus – did Joseph help to bring Him up?

– Yes. He taught Him to be a carpenter.

What kind of carpenter? Building houses?

– No. Making carts. It was using a plane and a spoke shave that gave Him the high, hunched shoulder. His right shoulder, because He was left-handed.

Did Mary believe in Him? Did she know from the beginning who He was?

– No.

But if the Angel appeared to her?

– That was a dream. She could not really believe in it.

But she knew she had not been with a man?

– She was a very ignorant girl in such matters. She scarcely knew what was involved in begetting a child. She accepted her disgrace.

Was this God’s wish? God’s Will?

– Yes. She too had to be tested, very hard.

When did she first begin to realise who He was?

– When He raised Lazarus.

How old was she when Jesus was born?

– Eighteen. It was already old for her to be married. She had no dowry. Joseph promised to marry her out of pity.

Did she work on embroidering the Veil of the Temple?

– Yes. She had the right, being descended from David.

Even after her child was born, and she was divorced?

– Yes. What counted was her descent. And it was not a divorce in the modern sense. It was a putting away, a separation.

But was she considered to be a married woman?

– No.

Yet she had a child. Did the priests not consider her unfit to handle the Veil?

– No. They accepted that she was not to blame.

Did Jesus live with her as a boy and as a young man?

– No. He lived with Joseph, as his apprentice. In the same town, though, and near His mother’s house.

Was she unhappy?

– Yes. She was a normal woman and yet she had neither her husband nor her child with her, and in spite of her blamelessness she was the object of malignant gossip and slander. This too was by God’s Will.

Was she a perfect housewife?

– No. She had no house of her own to keep. She helped her mother while St. Anne was alive. Then a sister-in-law.

She had a brother?

– Yes.

Did he sympathise with her? Protect her?

– No. He made her life unpleasant. He blamed her for what had happened.

Everything that you are telling me will infuriate pious Catholics, if they ever read it.

– That is a pity.

Then why are you telling me to write these things?

– Because they are true.

But no one will believe them. Why try to upset people’s faith?

– I want to strengthen it. By the truth. Mary was a real woman. Not a legend. In that lay her perfection.

But where is the perfection? Even in her acceptance of the Virgin Birth you say she did not really know what had happened.

– I am talking of her Real Self. Her Real Mind. Not the physical semblance. Have you understood nothing I have been telling you? Her Real Mind accepted what was to come, what was to become of her in the physical world. In that acceptance lay her perfection. And in all that had gone before.

In her previous lives? As other kinds of creature?

– Yes. In her totality she was and is perfect. It was not necessary to scrub floors to prove it.

Did she end her time on earth with St. John the Evangelist?

– No.

Did Our Lord not ask John to keep her with him?

– Yes.

Then what happened?

– St. John had to leave Jerusalem because of the persecutions. It would have been dangerous for her to go with him.

Dangerous? Why? Was it not more dangerous for her to stay in Jerusalem if there were persecutions?

– No. She could be hidden there. She might have been recognised if she had gone with him.

But where was the danger to her, an elderly woman?

– Because the authorities believed Jesus might still be alive. There were stories that He had been seen after the Crucifixion. They would have imprisoned her and might have ill-treated her to find out the truth of where He was.

Was this long after the Crucifixion?

– Three years.

And then John left Jerusalem and she hid in the city?

– Yes. With her cousin Mary Cleopas and Mary Cleopas’ husband.

Did she end her days with them?

– Yes. After another three and a half years. She lived with them openly after the danger was past. Then Jesus came for her, as much later he came for St. John.

Did John ever return to Jerusalem?

– Yes. Again, when the danger was past.

Did this danger in Jerusalem last long?

– A few months only.

Did Mary not return to live in John’s house?

– No. Although she was always welcome there, and he treated her as his mother until her death.

Where did the Gospel stories come from, of the three Magi, and the Flight into Egypt, and all the other tales of Jesus’ birth and childhood? Are they merely legends that became included in the Gospel account of His ministry?

– No. There is truth in them.

How can there be, if Joseph and Mary did not live together?

– Some of them apply to Jesus’ half-brother, James the Just, Joseph’s son by another wife. Joseph did escape from Herod into Egypt with his wife and child, but another wife, and the child was James. Herod knew nothing of Mary’s child, although Mary too was descended from David. Herod thought only of male descent.

And the story of Bethlehem, of the stable and the Shepherds? The Three Wise Men? The Star?

– The Star is true. Its presence announced Christ’s birth. The other details are legends, drawn from paganism, like the midwinter date. Christ was born in the spring, at the time of the Passover.

But if so much is legend, how can we believe the remainder?

– Because the remainder is true. The details are unimportant. The essential facts are that Jesus lived, Jesus died, Jesus rose from the dead; that He was God, and that He died for mankind, and was resurrected for mankind.

PSYCHIC FORCE

Are psychic phenomena against religion?

– No.

How does psychic force work? How do some people have power to work apparent miracles? To bend metal without touching it, to find water or buried treasure, or even missing people, by using only a map and a pendulum? To leave their bodies and travel like spirits?

– There are currents of psychic energy as there are of physical energy. The physical world is surrounded by a magnetic field. Dowsers for example are sensitive to this and to variations in it. In the spiritual world there are also currents of psychic energy. Certain people can put themselves in tune with these currents.

Then is dowsing not a psychic phenomenon?

– No. It is close to it. Such things take place on the borderline between the physical and psychic worlds. And in essence it is not sensible to divide the two. The two worlds make a whole as the inside and outside of a sphere make a whole. You cannot rationally divide the two. But in common speech, yes. One is physical, the other a psychic phenomenon. But an out-of-the-body experience for example is both. You cannot call it purely the one or the other. And dowsing is almost purely physical when the dowser walks across a field, and psychic when he or she uses a map.

When a dowser uses a pendulum over a map, or asks the pendulum to give him information about where an object is, or to tell him the age of an object on an archaeological site, where does the information come from?

– From himself.

Himself?

– His Real Self, his Real Mind and Soul. As I have told you. These are connected with the real world, the psychic and spiritual world. His Real Mind is part of that world, and all information, all that has been, all that is, all that will be, is contained in that world and he can draw on it, like drawing water out of a well, or a river.

Could he then discover the future?

– Sometimes. But he should not try. I say, all information is there to be drawn on, but only some of it is there for him to draw on, legitimately. Like a bank and a bank account. There is a great deal of money there, but only some for the owner of the account.

And if he tries to draw more than he should?

– He will get into trouble. Few people for example are allowed to know anything of the future.

Is this gift of dowsing, of divining for information, the same as the hearing and seeing that you have described to me?

– No. Those are quite different gifts. And need different disciplines.

But are they allied?

– Yes. Like running and swimming. Both are athletic feats. But not the same.

LIGHT AND DARK

Our spiritual purpose in life is to intensify our own light, to increase the strength of our auras, and the aura which surrounds us and is our Real Mind.

MIND

Our individual minds are like seeds planted in the earth. Our souls are the force of life that makes the seed grow into a plant. Our selves are the visible plant and its hidden roots.

But each plant is connected with its neighbours through the earth in which it grows. So each mind is connected with its neighbours, and in reality, with all other individual minds. And if you regard the plant as an ‘expression of the earth’, so each individual mind is an expression of the Total Mind, and connected with it, in touch with it. If you look at the petals, the leaves of the plant, they have no connection with those of another plant some distance away. But if you look at the roots, at the supporting earth, then all the plants are clearly and obviously connected, and answer the same stimuli as one. They possess both individuality and oneness. So do our minds. And if you imagine that the roots of these plants are not only buried in the same earth, but touch one another, or better still, derive from one master root, then you have an image of your situation as an individual. When an individual mind ‘receives’ information from a nonphysical source, a psychic source, it is simply drawing on the totality of information possessed by the Total Mind. It ‘receives’ it instantaneously because in a real sense it already possesses it. It simply allows itself to become aware of it.

THE STONE AGE

You spoke to me of the Stone Age. Did it make men happier than today?

– No more and no less than today. But it was healthier. And it gave them more understanding.

Are you speaking of the Old Stone Age, or the New?

– Of both.

They cover most of man’s existence as man. Surely there was a difference between one period and another, as to its spiritual value?

– The Old Stone Age was preferable from this point of view. Man was closer to nature, more conscious that he was part of it.

But those primitive peoples who still live that kind of life, the ones we know about, in New Guinea; Australia; the Bushmen; their lives seem miserable. Dirt; ignorance; disease; wretchedness.

– They become miserable and wretched and diseased once they are in contact with civilised men. Their ignorance is your assumption. Their dirt is unimportant.

But are we not meant to progress beyond their level of knowledge?

– Yes. But are you certain as to what is progress? We have spoken of this before.

Then was the Old Stone Age an ideal period? A Garden of Eden?

– No. Man had already fallen. But since then he has gone on falling.

But have we learned nothing valuable since then? Are we not less savage, less cruel?

– Less cruel? Today?

If it was physically possible, do you think we should try to return to a Stone Age simplicity?

– Yes. Theirs was a simplicity of nature, of what you have called ignorance. You should now strive for a simplicity that comes from knowledge.

What kind of simplicity is that?

– Simplicity of food. Knowing why you should eat what you should eat. And knowing what you should eat.

Must we all be vegetarians?

– No. But it is desirable.

Did Stone Age men not eat meat? They were hunters?

– Yes. But they ate meat with humility, as a gift from God, and from the spirits of the animals they killed. They killed and ate with reverence. That is no longer possible for you, raising animals in order to kill them. All your farming is becoming an insult to nature.

What other simplicities are there?

– Simplicity of living. Doing without machines, without electricity. Electric light, for example, is hostile to clarity of mind. Neon light is actively destructive, actively harmful. Quartz clocks and watches are another example of things you use which are harmful and even destructive. You could not ‘hear’ or ‘see’, as we have spoken of ‘hearing’ and ‘seeing’ if you wore a wristwatch of any kind, but a quartz watch is worst of all. Even a clock in the same room would interfere with ‘hearing’. It is an unnatural rhythm, an unnatural vibration.

But we have to know the right time.

– Why?

For instance – to meet a friend.

– He could wait. Or you could. If you could hear properly, you would know when he was there.

But business? Trains? Aeroplanes? They have to leave on time?

– Why? Are they going anywhere that matters?

You want the world to come to a full stop?

– No. Just a pause for thought. There are better ways of travelling than by aeroplane, or train, or motor car.

But what would people live on?

– What do they live on now?

On food. It has to be brought to them.

– Does it have to be brought by aeroplane?

No. But by train and lorry, and sometimes ship.

– People should eat what grows near them. It is healthier for them. And cheaper. And easier.

It is no good arguing with you. You are being unrealistic.

– Is cancer realistic? Heart disease? Kidney failure? Being run over? Dying of pollution? Alcoholism? Sterility?

But how can we go back?

– I have told you before. You must go forward. But in the direction of simplicity. The direction of Mind, not of machine. Or you will become machines.

We are going in the direction of computers, not of machines.

– Do you want to become a computer?

But how do we become more simple? How do we go in the direction of Mind?

– By learning to use your mind, your Real Mind. To hear; to see; to understand; to gain enlightenment; to become wise.

But how?

– I have been telling you how. There is no real wisdom within your mind. It must come to you from outside. From the Total Mind. Ultimately from God. Listen. Hear. Learn. Understand. See.

MIND AND BODY AND DEATH

When the body dies the mind withdraws from it as a hand withdraws from a glove. The reality is the hand, not the glove.

CONSCIENCE

Is one’s conscience infallible?

– If one listens to it correctly.

Yet in different cultures, different religions, men believe that different actions are virtuous.

– Not if the actions are important.

Some primitive people believe it is virtuous to kill strangers and eat them.

– They may be right in their circumstances. Death is not as important as you imagine.

Are you serious?

– Why should I bother to talk to you if I was not serious? There is a right moment for every being to die. The method is unimportant.

If death is not serious, what is?

– Vice. Evil. What affects the soul is serious, what affects the Real Mind. There, conscience is infallible. You persist in imagining that the material, temporary world is all-important. It is only important so far as it affects the spiritual world, the true reality.

But it cannot ever be right to kill and eat people. Are you truly being serious?

– Half serious. From the time of the Fall men have found it harder and harder to listen to their consciences and understand them perfectly. Therefore many times men have heard wrongly, and yet still they were virtuous because they sincerely intended virtue. But this does not absolve men from attempting to hear better what God wishes them to do.

THE ENEMY

Does the Devil have conscious allies in the world? A group of his servants dedicated to evil as the Essenes are dedicated to good, and are servants of God?

– Yes.

Are there many?

– No. A few. Like the Essenes.

Do these men control others who are unaware of their real purpose?

– No. They control others who are aware. Who have sold themselves to evil for gain, or power, or luxury or lust.

Are there many of this secondary kind of servants of evil?

– A number, but not a vast number. There is indeed a vast number of a third kind, who serve evil, and the agents of evil, but believe that they are merely serving themselves, and their own desires.

Is there an organisation of the conscious agents of the Devil? A counterpart of the Essenes?

– Yes.

Does it have a name?

– None that you would recognise.

You have told me of beings from other worlds, and that some of them wish to harm us. Are they connected with this organisation?

– No. They may serve it.

Knowingly? As part of it?

– No. They have its equivalent in their own world. That is what they serve.

Does the Devil’s organisation in this world hope to gain complete control of us?

– Yes. It has almost done so.

How?

– Through Communism. And in the West through the Intelligence Services.

You mean the CIA?

– I mean all the major Intelligence Services in all the Western countries. They have begun to serve themselves rather than their countries. They are combining together to create a world they can control completely.

To make us fight Russia, or China?

– To make you afraid of both, and therefore obedient. They already cooperate with the Russian Intelligence Services to this end. They will soon do so with their Chinese counterparts.

This is the world of 1984.

– It is almost 1984 today.

Should we be afraid of Communism?

– Yes. But for the right reasons. These are spiritual ones, not material. The economics and politics of Communism are unimportant.

You mean if the Communists allowed people to go to church, and worship God, there would be nothing wrong with them?

– No more than is wrong with Capitalists. Both follow bad systems. I have told you so many times.

And the Intelligence Services – the CIA, and the others? They don’t prevent anyone worshipping God?

– They have begun to control men’s minds. That is their real evil. They make men into spiritual slaves.

Are you talking about the men made into zombies to kill on command? Like the men who are supposed to have killed the Kennedys and Martin Luther King?

– Yes.

Were those murders arranged by American Intelligence Services?

– Yes.

Why?

– It has been stated often. These three men wished to change America, and in doing so they would have freed her from the hold of these Services. Therefore they were killed.

Have there been other such murders?

– No. Not such important ones. They have not been necessary.

Was President Nixon destroyed for the same reason?

– Yes. He was a bad President, but that was not why he was destroyed. He wanted to control the Intelligence Services for his own ends, and so he too was eliminated.

But all this has now been publicised. If the Intelligence Services were or are so powerful, why did they allow that?

– They were not powerful enough or efficient enough to prevent it. But they are learning.

You mean they will try again?

– They are already trying again.

But how can they if people have been warned?

– People have been indifferent to the warnings. Or have disbelieved them. Or hope to be well protected if the plan succeeds.

And you say this plan is evil? That ultimately it is guided by the Devil and his close servants in this world?

– Yes.

Are the heads of these Services aware of this?

– No. They may imagine they are serving God. But they are trying to create a world which in fact will be controlled by the Devil. A world where everyone is obedient not to his conscience, but to the orders of the State.

Like Communism?

– Yes. It will be the same. Only more efficient, and more ruthless.

How soon will this happen?

– I am not willing to show you the future, yet.

Can we prevent it happening?

– Yes. By prayer. By listening to God’s Will, and not theirs. By listening to conscience, which reveals God’s Will.

SUPERSTITION

Are superstitions ever true? Beliefs in omens, good and bad luck, the evil eye, things of that kind?

– Yes. Particularly the evil eye. Most superstitions have a remote basis in fact.

Some people believe it is unlucky to spill salt. Can such nonsense have any reality?

– If you believe it to be nonsense, it has none. But if you believe it to be true, it opens your mind to evil influences, in a minor way, and yet still a real one.

Men talk of being lucky or unlucky. Of having ‘runs’ of luck, good or bad. Of being born under a lucky or unlucky star. Is there any reality in such beliefs?

– No. Luck is chance, and this operates in a random fashion for every individual in accordance with the laws of chance.

There are laws governing chance?

– Of course. A man who works with these Laws, consciously or unconsciously, has good luck. He is in harmony with the Universe. A man who works against these laws, consciously or unconsciously, has bad luck, for the opposite reason. He is out of harmony with the Universe.

You seem to be saying what I suggested, that some men are lucky and some unlucky.

– Not because some force helps or opposes them no matter what they themselves do. It is because of their own actions that they enjoy good or bad luck.

If they do not know what actions to take it comes to the same thing, surely?

– No. They can learn. They can listen. But if they listen correctly they will not be much interested in what is usually called luck. They will not gamble, for example. They would not be interested in that kind of gain.

Napoleon said he only employed lucky marshals. Did he understand the Laws of Chance?

– Not very well. Look what happened to him. And to most of his marshals.

You say the evil eye exists?

– Yes. People who have given themselves completely to evil have an evil influence on others. In a sense this is exercised through the eye. They can harm others by looking at them with the intention to harm.

This is witchcraft!

– Yes.

Were witches evil?

– Some. Some still are. Others were quite innocent.

You say ‘still are’. Are there witches today?

– Yes. Of many kinds. Ignorant, innocent, foolish, evil. It is a way of getting in touch with the forces of nature. One of many ways.

Are these the same forces you spoke of in connection with luck and chance?

– Yes. Of a more limited kind. They are to do with growth and death. The forces governing ‘luck’ and chance are broader in their working. They govern all existence. They are the Laws of God, as opposed to the simple laws of nature, which are only a part of the Laws of God.

You call them the Laws of God, yet you speak of them as if they were blind forces, indifferent to morality?

– When did I say that? They are morality. That is why the man who is in harmony with them is fortunate. He becomes moral. He lives in accordance with God’s Will. He is armoured against all real misfortune.

Job was a moral man who obeyed God’s Will.

– And Job came to a happy end. Read his story again.

But he had a miserable time getting to the end.

– I have told you. The world is a battlefield where God and Evil are fighting for mastery. This is not a joke, nor a fable. It is the ultimate truth about your world. Do you expect to be comfortable on a battlefield? If you try, you will be killed for certain.

POSSESSION

You have said one can be harmed by the evil eye. Can one be possessed by evil spirits?

– Yes. I have told you so.

Can one be possessed by another human being, for evil?

– Yes. In the same way that one can be harmed by the evil eye.

This seems like a return to the Middle Ages, and worse.

– It is the truth. It has nothing to do with historical periods.

Can one be protected against these things? By amulets, or talismans?

– No.

Can one protect oneself in any way?

– Yes. By right living, in harmony with God’s Will. A person who lives in that way need fear nothing.

But how can we tell if we are living rightly? You yourself said it was difficult.

– It is difficult. You must listen. You must learn to hear. I have told you many times.

But when one listens one hears conflicting voices. Surely this is to make possession of one’s mind easier, not harder?

– If you are foolish, yes.

If I was born foolish, can I help it?

– Yes. Folly is not to use the gifts one possesses. Not to use them in the right way, for right ends. If you listen hard enough, you will hear correctly. Folly and stupidity are not the same things.

Is a stupid person open to possession? A moron, for example, or an imbecile?

– Yes. But only at their own level of conscience and intelligence. They could resist it if they wished.

Yet such people appear to have no control over their minds.

– We are not talking about physical control, or material decisions. Possession operates at a different level, that of the Real Mind. The Real Mind of an imbecile is not imbecilic.

Does a person’s intelligence and physique not reflect their Real Mind?

– No. I have told you that Jesus was almost a dwarf and ugly. Yet He was God in reality. Never judge by what you see with your ordinary eyes. You are looking at shadows, at unreality.

REINCARNATION

You have said that reincarnation in the sense of our living many human lives is not true. But if a child dies in the womb or at birth, or soon after, is that the only human life it will ever have?

– No. It will live again to fulfil that part of its destiny. But it will not live many times as reincamationists imagine.

Yet you say we live many times in another sense; as plants, as animals, as men?

– And as other creatures, and as higher beings than men.

Are we not the highest created beings?

– No. If that were true Creation would be a sad failure. There are much higher levels, and many of them. You are half way up a long ladder of development. Not even half way.

If we cannot remember previous lives, what use are they for our progress to higher levels?

– I have told you, the word ‘previous’ is meaningless in a real sense. All that happens, happens now; not then.

I can’t understand.

– It does not matter. It is so.

But is it possible to remember previous lives, other lives? As a bird, for example?

– If you have been a bird, yes. But it would have no value to remember. Your Real Mind already knows. It still is what you would remember. And all your other lives as well. It is your Real Mind that experiences and benefits from these different existences.

What are the higher levels of existence? Where do they take place? On other planets?

– Not necessarily. They could be here, in this world.

In the future?

– No. Now. There is only now.

But speaking in human terms. In what I call the future?

– No. Even in your terms, now. Men and women can become what you would call spirits, angels.

I thought that God created angels in a different way, that they were a different order of being from man?

– From man as you know him, yes. But the angels are what man is supposed to be. The good angels, that is. He can become a devil, too. That is also possible.

So that the angels who guard us, have been people in previous lives?

– If you wish to talk in terms of past and future, yes.

But the angels were created before man, surely?

– In human terms, yes. Just as the sea was created before rivers. But rivers flow into the sea, and become the sea. Men become angels.

And is there a hierarchy among the angels? With archangels above all?

– Yes.

Were even the archangels once human beings?

– Yes.

Yet they existed as archangels before man was made?

– Yes. In your terms. But your terms are unreal. The fall of man and the fall of the angels are connected. When the angels fell, man was decreed. The angels who had not fallen were given the care of man. If you look for symmetry in Creation you will guide yourself correctly. All is symmetrical.

Did the fallen angels also become men?

– No. They try to become men. They fight to gain possession of living creatures so that they may continue to exist.

Where is the symmetry there?

– There is none. That is the Devil’s achievement, his only achievement so far; to injure God’s symmetry, and therefore God’s perfection. If the Devil and His servants fail, they will cease to exist, and perfection will be restored.

I have asked you about archangels and angels. Are the seraphim a kind of archangel?

– No. They are an expression of God. In a sense they are parts of God, as the hand is part of the body. They are His most intimate servants.

How many are there?

– Four. You are told in the Old Testament. Like the four limbs of God.

Is the Old Testament description to be understood literally? As creatures with wings, and feet, and faces? Such as Isaiah describes, or the Pentateuch?

– No. Those were visions, translated into human terms. It is the seraphim who appeared to Abraham, in the shape of men.

You say they are God’s servants, yet are parts of God. Are they God? Is God not one, or three, but many? You have told me you are a part of God. Are you one of the seraphim?

– No. The seraphim are parts of the One, and of the Three. Your hand is part of you, but it is not you. If it were cut off, you would remain you. It has an appearance and character of its own. So have the seraphim. If this were a seraph speaking to you, it would have its own individual voice. It was a seraph who first spoke to you. Can you not hear the difference?

Yes. Did the seraphim become men, as the angels and archangels did?

– No. They became one man, when God was born as Jesus.

You say there are higher levels of existence than man. God became man. Will He also become an example of each higher level of existence?

– No. Man’s is the highest physical level. Beyond that level the Real Mind is directly aware of God, and has no need of God’s Incarnation, in the sense that man needs it. Man is a turning point in the struggle to regain perfection.

GOD’S FRIENDS

St. Theresa of Avila once said it was no wonder God had so few friends if He treated them all as badly as He treated her. Why does He treat them so harshly?

– They are soldiers in the war against evil. Soldiers do not look, or should not look, for comfortable treatment. They should think only of serving their Master’s cause. And for this, discipline and hardihood are needed, not luxury.

DEATH

You have said that death is less important than we think. What happens to us when we die?

– You go somewhere else.

But where? Heaven? Hell? Limbo? Purgatory?

– None of those places. You return to your Real Self, your Real Mind. You become aware of what you have really done during your human life. It can be a terrible experience. You could call that hell or purgatory if you wish.

Does it last long?

– It lasts for ever. Until time comes to an end. It will seem very long.

You say we have other lives to live after we die in this life. What kind of lives are they?

– Spiritual lives.

If we have been wicked in this life do we go back to a lower level, to become animals again for example?

– No. I have told you, your next life is a spiritual life.

Like an angel?

– Much less than an angel. As the servant of an angel, good or bad.

Bad? We could become servants to a fallen angel?

– Of course. If you served evil in this life, do you expect to serve good in the next?

Then after this life we may be condemned for ever? Yet you said there was no hell?

– There is no hell, and I did not say for ever. But if you are serving a fallen angel in your next life it will be hard to escape from her.

Her? Are devils female?

– They can appear as male or female. I have allowed you to see one as a man. Do you wish to see one as a woman?

No.

– But I will show you. She is very beautiful if you judge by human standards.

I should be afraid. Of being tempted towards evil.

– Then we must wait until you are stronger. Imagine how hard it is to escape once you are enslaved.

Are the good angels male and female?

– Yes. In your eyes, although the words have no real meaning.

Are they beautiful to my eyes?

– You have heard them singing. Imagine how they look. But you could not look at them now. You would be destroyed.

Like looking at the sun?

– Much more than that. The least angel burns more brightly than your sun. Compare that to your soul that you saw flickering like a yellow marsh light, a candle flame.

I feel ashamed.

– You should.

What can I do before I die?

– Burn with love. With love of God. With love of His Creation. With love of His creatures. Burn.

This is a word. How can I burn?

– Open your heart. See. Feel. Hear. Listen. Let God enter your heart. He will burn it like dry wood.

Is it painful?

– It is agony. And then perfect joy.

And I need do nothing, beyond opening myself to God, accepting His Will?

– Nothing. Only prepare yourself and wait. He will come to you.

LIFE

Is this life, as a human being the most important of all our lives?

– Yes. It is the turning point. I have told you so. But on a journey, one mile is as important as another. Each must be completed or the journey cannot come to an end.

Yet one person has a life full of intellect, with infinite opportunities for choice, and for moral decisions. Another is an imbecile, or a savage, with very limited choice between good and evil, or none at all. How can this be fair?

– It is the story of the widow’s mite. The imbecile, the savage, gives all that he has, and it is enough. It is riches.

You say that a person’s state in this world is no indication of their reality. Can an imbecile or a savage, to keep those examples, possess a great soul?

– A great soul may possess them. And may need to put no more of itself into the world than the apparently little that you see. This world, this life, is important, but not all-important.

You say there are other worlds where there are beings like ourselves. May we be reborn into one of those worlds?

– No.

Why not?

– No more than you are reborn in this world onto each of the five continents, or at different levels of civilisation. Their worlds know more in a technical fashion, they have more physical and psychic power. But no more spiritual power.

I thought you told me that they were more spiritually advanced and powerful than we are.

– No. In a psychic sense they are more powerful than you are. And in the physical sense. But not spiritually.

I don’t understand. I thought that psychic and spiritual were the same.

– No. Physical power belongs to the body; psychic power belongs to the mind. Spiritual power belongs to the soul. It is the soul.

Then the soul is more important than the Mind? Than the Real Mind?

– Yes. The Real Mind is a creature, a created being. But the soul is a part of God, a seed planted by God in your Created Mind. It is the Mind’s business to nourish and protect the soul. To increase its strength and light. It has no other worthwhile task.

I thought the soul was the servant of the Mind?

– Only as God is the servant of man. The power of the soul is infinite. It needs only to be allowed to grow, to be put once more in direct contact with God. Psychic power is human; physical power is human. Spiritual power is divine. Psychic power is as helpless against spiritual power, as physical power is against psychic power.

Is this why a great master of Yoga would despise psychic power?

– He would not despise it. He would ignore it. It would have no interest for him.

You say him. Can a woman have as much psychic or spiritual power as a man?

– Yes. In real terms ‘man’ and ‘woman’ have no meaning.

Is the Church wrong to forbid women to become priests?

– No. In becoming a woman a soul, a Real Mind has submitted itself to certain handicaps that make her unsuitable for priesthood.

What handicaps?

– Physical, for one thing. It is a woman’s joy to have children.

But nuns have no children.

– They are not constantly in touch with men, unprotected, as a priest must be.

Yet priests are constantly in touch with women, unprotected?

– Yes. And some give way to temptation. But for a woman the scandal would be graver, because it would be more obvious.

No woman would accept that. Could she not be a priest after a certain age? Or with certain safeguards?

– No. The physical objection is only one of many, more serious objections. She has taken on herself a certain type of mind, of spirituality, that is not a priestly one.

No woman will believe it. There have been many religions that had priestesses. Were they wrong?

– No. But the Catholic Church is a sacred marriage between God and the Church, God and man. In this marriage the role of the husband is taken by God, and His priests represent Him. The Church and mankind are the Bride.

But if men in the Church play the female role of Bride, why cannot women play the male role of priests? You are juggling with words.

– I am telling you reality. God is both male and female. But He chose to come to earth as Jesus, to establish the priesthood. And as Mary, to establish the role of the nun. It is His choice.

You are saying it is because it is. How many women have suffered horribly or led lives of futile misery because of this teaching?

– No more than have led lives of great virtue. Orders of nuns are as humanly imperfect as every human organisation. Do not blame God because men are tyrannical to women, or women unbearable to other women.

Who should we blame?

– Yourselves.

But now that women desire equality, why should they not have it?

– What kind of equality?

In such things as the priesthood.

– Is a bird to have equality with a fish? It will drown. You must accept that there are differences.

No woman reading these lines will agree.

– Then let her become a priest. It would be an empty gesture. The priesthood does not come from the priest, but from God. He has chosen to give it to men, and not to women. Question Him.

I am trying to.

– And He is tired of answering.

That is a tyrant’s reply.

– If I give you another answer, will you understand it? It is a question of psychic and spiritual power, and vulnerability. Women are less powerful psychically. More vulnerable to psychic attack. They can attain as great spiritual power as men, but this could not guarantee their perfection, if they were attacked by evil.

You have just said that spiritual power is greater than psychic power. If a woman priest had spiritual power, she would not need psychic power?

– If. Not many priests have spiritual power. They have psychic power because it is given to them. It is a gift. Their natures can support it. A woman under the strain of psychic power becomes unbalanced.

In a mental sense? She becomes mad?

– In a spiritual sense. Just as for a woman athlete certain drugs make her unbalanced in a bodily sense. They help her athletic performance but injure her as a woman. So the gift of psychic power that accompanies the gift of priesthood would injure a woman in many ways.

Yet some churches already make women priests.

– These churches have no psychic power.

POWER

You have said that priests are given psychic power? I thought it would have been spiritual power. But what is the difference?

– All the difference possible. And they are given both. Both are types of energy, of force, but they are at opposite ends of the spectrum of force. In electromagnetic energy you have a spectrum ranging from gamma rays which are very short and injurious to men, to Hertzian waves which are very long and imperceptible to men. In the centre of this spectrum are the light waves which you see as colours. There is a similar spectrum of force, of energy, ranging from psychic force, the equivalent of cosmic or gamma rays, to spiritual force, the equivalent of Hertzian waves. In the centre of this spectrum is the band of energy which you know as mental force, which you use to move your body, to operate a machine, and ultimately to cause nuclear fission. But it is a band, a continuum, with psychic force at one end and spiritual force at the other.

So that psychic force has nothing to do with electromagnetism?

– No.

But is mental force not electromagnetic in essence?

– No. You are not a physicist. It is pointless you trying to understand. Write down what I tell you and accept it.

A priest is given both kinds of force, psychic and spiritual?

– Yes. All kinds. It is by spiritual force that he turns the Host into God, or that he can exorcise devils, or baptises a child. It is by mental force that he lives as all men live. And he may never use psychic force in all his priest’s life. But he possesses it, whether he knows it or not, and it is by this means that he may be assaulted by the Devil. More than possessing it, he is made vulnerable to it, open to its influence. In order to grant him spiritual force, his spectrum has been widened. It is as if your eyes were made capable of seeing a wider spectrum than from violet to red. In order to permit you to see infrared light, you would also be made capable of seeing ultraviolet light, even though the real purpose was only to permit you to see infrared. The one comes as an inevitable result of the other.

Then does the Devil operate through psychic force and not spiritual?

– Yes. The Devil has no spiritual force. That is why spiritual force defeats him so easily. But he has great psychic force. Immense. Here lies the danger for anyone dabbling in psychic affairs, and for women desiring to be priests. A woman’s natural range of force lies further into the spiritual than man’s does. Man’s is centred on the mind.

Yet women seem more prone than men to psychic influences: they become spirit mediums, suffer from psychic hysteria?

– Because they are less protected, more vulnerable to this type of force. I have been telling you this.

You spoke of nuclear force. Do you mean that spiritual force is capable of greater results than any mental energy? That a man possessing spiritual force could create a greater result than an earthquake, or a hurricane?

– Infinitely greater. Cannot a priest bring God Himself into a cup of wine or a piece of bread?

But that is not a visible, tangible result.

– Not to you. I tell you again and again, the world you see and live in is not the real world.

Then is our mental energy not a real energy?

– No. It is merely the meeting point between psychic and spiritual energy. Just as the physical world is the meeting point between the forces of God and the Devil. It is a battlefield; a concept rather than a reality.

Is this what theologians call Dualism?

– No. Dualism claims that matter belongs to the Devil, and Spirit to God. That is utterly different, and utterly wrong. All that is belongs to God. The Devil is attempting to gain possession of as much as he can. But in gaining possession he can only destroy. ‘Matter’ if it existed could not belong to the Devil. In belonging to him it would cease to exist and become nothingness. I have told you this before.

But psychic power belongs to the Devil?

– It does not belong to him. He is permitted to use it.

Is psychic power evil?

– No. It can be used for good or evil. But being used by evil it is very dangerous.

Do people who bend metal without touching it use psychic power?

– Yes. This is almost the meeting point of psychic and mental power. Mental power of a limited kind extends outside the visible body. They use this.

Yet it seems a very powerful kind of force.

– It can be concentrated on a small area. But it is a parlour trick rather than a useful gift. The same is true of out-of-the-body journeys.

You told me that out-of-the-body journeys were limited as to time and distance. Is this always true?

– No. There are exceptional individuals, just as there are exceptional conjurers. It is not worth discussing.

To me it seems as remarkable as anything we have discussed.

– As God? As the Devil?

No. But still remarkable.

– Out-of-the-body travel of this kind merely brings your senses to a place you could go to on foot, or by aeroplane. It is another parlour trick.

And levitation? People who float off the ground during a trance?

– That demonstrates the unreality of Matter and of the laws that govern it. These laws are conventions that you accept, and that therefore exist. In a trance your mind may cease for a moment to accept them and they therefore cease to exist.

But the body does not vanish or disintegrate or change into something else. It simply floats up.

– Because in the trance the mind wishes it to float. In the case of a mystic it yearns upwards towards God. The body translates this yearning into movement.

Many people have apparently died for a brief period, in illness or under an operation, or from an accident, and then returned to life. They describe their experience in similar terms to those of an out-of-the-body experience. Is that true? Are they similar?

– No. In an out-of-the-body experience it is the earthly mind that is travelling. In the other, the temporary ‘death’, it is the soul that is withdrawing from the body towards the Real Mind.

Such people describe being met, by many other spirits. Are those angels? Or friends who have already died?

– No. Those are parts of the Real Mind to which the person belongs.

In this life, the powers of hearing and seeing, that you have described to me – are they psychic? Or spiritual?

– They are neither. They are faculties, more powerful or less powerful according to the individual, that can be directed towards good or evil, towards spiritual or psychic ends.

But our conversation – is it a psychic experience?

– No. It is spiritual. Not because you have any spiritual power but because you are listening in this direction, you are allowing yourself to be in harmony with your Real Mind. I am speaking to you through your Real Mind.

FOOD

You have told me something of the kinds of food one should and should not eat if one wishes to gain spiritual strength. Will you tell me about quantities? Should one eat very little, or does it matter?

– One should eat no more than is necessary to satisfy hunger and make one feel healthy. And as one gains spiritual strength one will need to eat less.

Do you mean one should begin severe fasting?

– No. I mean that your need for food will become less. Someone who lives in a purely physical condition may need to eat a great deal, because he gains only a superficial benefit from the food he eats. Someone who has begun to live a spiritual life, and to gain spiritual strength, will draw much greater benefit from the correct foods, and so will need a smaller quantity to maintain himself in health.

You mean that if two people eat the same quantity of food, and if in physique they are equal, one will gain greater nourishment than the other?

– Yes. There is enormous value locked up in the foods you eat, which normally is lost and is of no benefit to you. As you gain spiritual experience, some of this value is released into your body.

Should someone searching for spiritual development attempt to live on very small quantities, then? Say one small meal a day? Or less?

– No. That is the wrong order of events. As the person develops spiritually he or she will realise that they need less food. In the beginning all they need to do is to avoid greed, and follow the diet they have been shown. As their need for food lessens, they will be told.

THE WAR BETWEEN GOD AND THE DEVIL

Is this war a simple struggle? Like St. George and the Dragon? Like the Archangel Michael with his flaming sword driving out the Devil?

– No. It is infinitely complex. It is even beautiful.

Beautiful?

– As fire may be beautiful, a volcano in eruption, a thunderstorm and lightning. These things are terrible, yet beautiful.

How can the Devil, a created being, resist God who created Him?

– God gave vast power into His hands.

Could God not withdraw that power from Him?

– Yes. But at the cost of annihilating all that the Devil has touched.

Why?

– The Fall allowed the Devil power for evil within Creation. You remember the parable of the wheat and the tares, the weeds that an enemy scattered in the field of wheat?

Yes.

– There is the answer. In destroying the weeds you would destroy the wheat.

And does this war extend everywhere?

– Yes. Into the least and the greatest things. Into an angry word. Into a massacre.

Does the war affect other aspects of Creation besides mankind?

– Yes. The whole of Creation. Nothing is injured but the Devil is glad of it. Nothing is destroyed, but He triumphs. In the depths of the earth. In the centres of the stars.

Can He destroy angels?

– Yes. He has destroyed many angels, bringing them into His service.

Can devils be won back to God?

– No.

But you told me –

– I told you they could return to God. It must be of their own will. They are not objects to be won or lost. They win or lose themselves.

Can the Devil Himself return to God?

– That is the highest prayer. He was the greatest of the angels, the summit of Creation.

Could the angels who have remained loyal accept Him back?

– With infinite happiness. That is the purpose of their fighting. Not to destroy, but to save. To gain His ultimate submission. God cannot wish to destroy His own Creation, the crown of it above all.

THE INDIVIDUAL

During our lives in this world does our Real Mind watch over us?

– Yes.

Does it ever intervene in our lives to guide us?

– Yes. This is what you call conscience, the pricking of conscience. Your Real Mind acts as a link between you and God, you and God’s Will.

Does it intervene more actively, to protect us from dangers, from evil?

– No. You must protect yourself.

Have we not a guardian angel?

– No. There is no such thing.

What do the angels do, then?

– They glorify God, and defend His Creation.

But we are part of His Creation.

– You too are meant to be defending it. A soldier does not ask to be protected by his officers, he is supposed to help them, and follow them.

Then are the angels our leaders in the war against evil?

– Yes.

Are we ever aware of our Real Minds during our lives? Not only as conscience, but as something more real?

– Yes. If you learn to hear and see, you will become aware of it.

Could one see other Real Minds?

– Yes. There is no limit to what you could see if you developed spiritual power. Some men have seen God.

If one attempts to develop such power, does one become more vulnerable to attacks by the Devil?

– Not more vulnerable. More liable. One attracts His attention, as a brave soldier attracts the attention of the enemy.

You keep speaking of soldiers and of war. Is it like human warfare?

– No. It is like a storm, the crashing together of hurricanes. Nuclear warfare begins to be a small reflection of it. It is not possible for you to visualise it.

Yet we, as human beings, play a part in it?

– No. Your Real Minds play a part in it.

And what do we do, here in this world?

– Prepare yourselves to help your Real Minds. This is a training ground.

Yet the Devil is here?

– Yes. To seduce you from your training, and your loyalty. The real war is elsewhere.

But I thought you told me that God allows Himself only that strength that we give to Him by our goodness, and that the Devil too draws his strength from our evil doing?

– Yes. There are many worlds. The beings of all the worlds, including yours, give their strength to this warfare, on one side or the other. Even though they are not yet taking a more conscious part in it.

Have the angels no strength of their own?

– Yes. But it is no greater than the Devil’s. You are asking questions beyond your understanding.

Do our Real Minds take an active part in this war of good and evil?

– No. I tell you, it is beyond your conception.

Yet you keep telling me we are involved. You have just said that an individual who sought spiritual power would attract the Devil’s special enmity?

– Soldiers have many tasks in a war. Not many fire great cannon or drop nuclear bombs. You are given tasks according to your strength. You are like recruits training. Your Real Minds are like soldiers in the rear of a battle, guarding the supplies. Beings much greater than you do the fighting. But it can happen that an individual soldier is needed for a task, and only a recruit scarcely trained is near to hand. Or a recruit may show great skill and courage. You must not press this imagery too far, but it may serve to explain to you what I mean.

You say we have no real part in this war, and yet you told me of terrible times to come in the world? What did you mean?

– A training camp can be overrun by the enemy. The soldiers in training may become traitors, or revolutionaries. They may begin to fight among themselves. This began long ago in your world. It is growing worse. I have said you have no real part in the great war between good and evil. But you have brought that war among yourselves. You have opened your camp to the enemy.

This seems to me to contradict what you previously said. We are then involved in this war?

– Not by God’s Will. You are too weak for it. You have brought it on yourselves and it is and will be more terrible because you are so unready. I will have many things to tell you and show you about this growing war which is to come upon you.

SPIRITS

Are all spirits either angels or devils?

– No. There are many kinds. Men are ‘spirits’ when seen in reality. Every living creature is a spirit.

Are there spirits besides those kinds again, not of living creatures, and not of angels or devils?

– Yes. Many kinds, both bad and good. The world, the real world, is more complicated and more wonderful than you can imagine.

What is the purpose of those spirits you have just mentioned?

– To serve God of course. But many fail, and many turn against Him.

But what kind are they? I can imagine the spirit of a tiger, or of a tree or a flower – but a spirit that has no physical counterpart?

– I did not say that. Places have spirits. Rocks. Hills. Rivers. Deserts. The spirit may control all creatures connected with that place. Have you never felt a place friendly, or unfriendly? Sad or happy?

I have thought it was to do with the weather.

– No. Although some places invite sad weather and others give the weather a feeling of joy even if the sky is overcast.

I have been in caves where men never set foot until today, and they are more beautiful than palaces. Are there spirits there?

– Yes. These are God’s jewels. They keep them for Him. God has enormous joy in all the beautiful things He has made. And what you see is only the outer husk of them. Not the reality.

People claim to get in touch with these kinds of spirit of place – of caves and rivers and deserts. Do they do this by spiritual power?

– No. By psychic power. It is intensely dangerous. Only someone with a deep and serious purpose for good should attempt to do it. It requires long training and great courage and can end in catastrophe for the seeker.

People attempt to do it by means of drugs. Is this wrong?

– It is insanity. Some primitive people did this as part of their religion. They were protected by innocence. Men today have lost that protection. There are no short cuts to knowledge or to power.

But is it good and right to seek power?

– Yes: if it is for a good motive, to serve God. To do it for egotism or curiosity is bad, and can be wicked. It is the path of sorcery.

Can a seeker be neutral in this matter? Merely seek knowledge for its own sake as a physical scientist does, without thought of good or evil?

– No. He may think that he is neutral, but he will be serving one side or the other, and will one day discover which side he has chosen.

THE INDIVIDUAL

Have I understood the relationship between the individual and what you call the Real Mind?

– No. If you think of a soldier in an army, it will give you an image of the reality. The human being is the soldier. Each of you possesses a mind, a soul, a self, housed in a physical body. The body is the vehicle for those three realities, which form You. At your death, those three realities, the You, fly at once to rejoin a greater Mind and Soul and Self, as a soldier who has been on sentry duty would rejoin his company.

That greater Mind and Soul and Self is what for simplicity I call the Real Mind, to which you belong as a soldier belongs to his company. His company in turn belongs to a battalion and that to a brigade, and so on, to the ultimate whole of the army that he serves in. So your Real Mind belongs to a Greater Mind, and ultimately to the Total Mind of Creation.

And just as a soldier retains his individuality within his company, and regiment, and corps, so do you, and yet you belong to the greater units in a way no soldier can belong to a company or army. You share in the feelings and reality of each of your comrades, and of all of them. Or you will do. What they feel of joy and triumph and love of God you will feel.

But if I have been sinful?

– Like a soldier who has been wounded you cannot rejoin your company until you are cured.

You said that at death we fly to our company, our Real Mind.

– To be examined by them. They cannot accept you back until you are fit to join them again. You may have to undergo many things before that can be.

What things?

– Hard duties. You cannot understand now. As a soldier might need more training.

If I have sold myself to evil?

– If a soldier dies, what happens? He is buried, and his name is crossed off the list of his company.

And within each individual human being, is there a company of lesser beings?

– Yes. I have told you so. All the creatures you have been.

Should we for this reason alone be kind towards all animals?

– For this reason and for a greater reason. All life is from God. All animals are created by God. All living creatures should be treated by men and women as they themselves wish to be treated, with gentleness and love.

Sometimes religion itself appears to justify cruelty to animals, or at least indifference to their sufferings, on the grounds that animals have no souls, and were created to serve man’s needs.

– As the higher being, man is responsible for the animals that come under his care or power. He should treat them as he hopes God will treat him. Even if he must kill them for food, or exploit their labour, he should do this with deep reverence for life, and for a fellow creature. And it would be better if he never killed.

Do you approve of keeping animals in zoos, or circuses?

– No. These things are an insult to God’s creation. Imagine that the world was taken into the control of a higher species, and men and women were put on display in cages.

But sometimes zoos must awaken a love of animals in the people who visit them?

– That is not enough to justify the cruelty. There are other ways of learning to love animals.

And vivisection? Experiments in laboratories to cure disease in humans? May animals be used in this way?

– No. It is a monstrous cruelty, and also a monstrous hypocrisy. Most of these experiments are for commercial gain, or professional vanity. Few of them have any connection with true medical research.

Some religions, Judaism among them, insist that animals be butchered in a way that seems inhumane, before their meat is considered fit to eat. Do you approve of this?

– No.

Yet the Jews would claim that it is by your direct command to Moses that this is done. Are they wrong?

– Yes.

And have been wrong for three thousand years?

– Yes. Originally the draining of blood from slaughtered cattle was a superstition, a returning of the life blood to Mother Earth, Mother Nature, so that She would provide more life. It was also a measure of hygiene, preventing the meat from rotting quickly. Today the practice is unnecessary and cruel. I never commanded it.

THE OLD TESTAMENT

You have said the Laws of Moses were wrong, or have been misunderstood, concerning the ritual slaughter of cattle. Are there other things written in them that are not to be believed?

– Many things. The Bible is a collection of legends, stories, histories, poems, prophecies, all rewritten and altered many times over many centuries.

Then it is merely a book, or collection of books, like the pagan epics?

– No, it is much more than that. It is full of insights into the Will of God. But it must be read with great care, and great wisdom, so far as men have wisdom.

It also seems full of cruelty. It draws a portrait of a jealous, vengeful God, who delights in slaughter. Is this a false portrait?

– Grotesquely false. Can you imagine such a God sending His own and only Son to die for mankind?

I have to answer you that yes, I can. To sacrifice one’s own son, this in itself seems cruel. And to have created a world in which such a sacrifice becomes necessary, that too seems cruel and terrible. I know all you have told me of Free Will, and of the Devil, and of the Fall of Man, and I understand some of it. I have experienced Your tenderness, I know that all You do is from Love. And yet these things still seem unendurable in their cruelty.

– If I was cruel, would I allow you to question Me like this?

But how can I convince others? How can I convince good people who could not conceive of creating a world in which such things could need to happen? They will say, they do say, why could the world not have been made perfect?

– It was made perfect. Man was allowed to share in it, to keep it perfect, and instead he destroyed its perfection.

But why was he made in such a way that he would be tempted to destroy it?

– The freedom to keep involves the freedom to throw away. If man was to be free he had to be free to destroy as well as to maintain. It is a simple answer but it is the only one.

If I could tell people how kind You are. It is the best and kindest people who do not want to believe in You, because they think that You must be cruel if You exist. They look in the Old Testament and read only of hatred and massacre, chants of vengeance, the smell of blood. And the New Testament is not much better. If one reads it from a humane point of view the whole Bible is a dreadful book.

– You are right. It is a dreadful book. It is full of dread. Of Satan, of evil, of the loss of Paradise, of the self-destruction of mankind. It tells the story of the Fall of Man from Paradise to the edge of Hell. Do you think this could be made into a happy story? Only the end can be a happy one and that is not yet.

But why must the punishments be so terrible?

– They are not punishments. They are disasters man brings on himself.

But why must they be so terrible? If a man saw his child about to burn himself in the fire, even from disobedience, even if he had been warned again and again, the father would still save his child from burning himself. And yet You allow man to burn himself.

– How many times have I saved men from themselves? But you do not understand. Man has chosen imperfection, he has chosen evil, again and again. If he is to become happy, if he is to become perfect, he must be cleansed from evil, he must cleanse himself. It is that cleansing that causes pain. It is the burning away of imperfection that seems like cruelty, and is in fact the greatest mercy. One day you will understand.

Are there any books of the Old Testament that would help me to understand?

– Isaiah. Read Isaiah and that will be enough.

And in the New Testament?

– St. John’s Gospel and Revelation. Read those three books, over and over, and you may understand.

VISIONS

Are we to believe in the visions of Lourdes and Fatima, and others like those?

– Yes. We have spoken of then already. They are appeals by Our Lady to mankind to listen to God before it is too late. Before the world is destroyed, not by God, but by man.

Why were these visions granted to ignorant children and peasants, and not to educated people who could persuade the world of their truth?

– The children and peasants were innocent, and had faith. Educated people would be afraid of making fools of themselves. And they would be accused of fraud, and ulterior motives.

For every vision that is genuine, are there others that are false?

– Of course. What the Devil cannot prevent He tries to ruin by imitation. People suffer from hysteria, tell lies, try to make a profit from deceiving. But this does not alter the truth of the real visions.

How can a wise man tell the difference between two reports; one of a genuine vision, and the other of a fraud or hallucination?

– He must use his intelligence.

That is often a poor guide. Statues weep or move their eyes. Sacred blood liquefies on certain dates. Mysterious paintings appear on walls. Often these things take place in Southern Italy among simple people prone to believe in miracles. They sound like hysteria or fraud. Are they ever genuine?

– No. God has never used such childish methods. The true visions are that – visions. Not conjuring tricks. Often these latter, these weeping statues, are relics of paganism. Or schemes of the Mafia or local gangsters. Ultimately of the Devil.

Have the real visions occurred ever since the Crucifixion? In every century?

– No. Now and then. But most often in the last 150 years. Man is approaching a crisis, faster and faster. It began with the Industrial Revolution, and the Age of Machines. God is attempting to warn mankind.

Are there ever private visions, of the same nature as the public ones?

– Yes. Often.

And are many of them hallucinations?

– Sometimes. Again, the supposed visionary, or the person told of the vision, must use his or her intelligence. Most visionaries are instructed to keep their visions secret.

Are these visions what you have called ‘seeing’?

– No. They can come to anyone who is of a right frame of mind. They do not need deliberate preparations. Seeing and hearing need long and exact preparation, under guidance.

What guidance?

– I have told you. When the time is correct for you, you will receive it, in whatever way is appropriate. But visions occur as it were spontaneously, to chosen people.

If they are to be kept secret, what value do they have for the world?

– Perhaps none. But they would have great value for the chosen individual. He or she might be instructed to do something necessary for his or her salvation, or that of others. Or to convey a warning, or support a particular cause of value to the world.

It seems a strange, secretive way of carrying on.

– No more secret than most orders or messages given in the world. Private would be the word rather than secret. If you receive a letter from a friend or an employer, you normally keep it private to yourself.

Are these private visions always of Our Lady?

– No. But usually they are. God takes Her form for many reasons. She is most easily recognised for what and who She is, and less frightening than other forms God might take.

But are there ever visions of angels, of saints, of the recently dead?

– Yes, if such a vision is necessary.

One rarely hears of them.

– You are not supposed to, unless you yourself receive such a vision.

Would a nun or a priest be most likely to receive them?

– No. Anyone might do so.

Even a non-Catholic? Even a non-Christian?

– Of course. In a form they could accept. Shaped by their own religion or culture. Catholics have no monopoly of spiritual life.

These visions are spiritual always, and not psychic?

– Yes. They have nothing whatsoever to do with psychic power. They are at the opposite extreme to all psychic manifestations.

You have said that Christ might appear to anyone, as a living man. Would this be of the same nature as visions?

– No. I meant exactly what I said. A vision is not a living man or woman. It is a vision. Christ could appear to you in the same form as yourself, as a brother. You could touch his hand and it would feel exactly like your own.

Whereas if you tried to touch a vision?

– It would he impossible.

But has Christ ever really appeared to anyone like that?

– To the apostles, after the Crucifixion.

Since then?

– No.

Yet you say it has always been possible?

– Yes.

A possibility that never happens seems unreal.

– It is real, nevertheless.

And He could appear to many people in the same way at the same time?

– Yes.

What would He do, if it happened?

– What He did in Judaea and Galilee. He would ask you to follow Him.

And then?

– What happened to the Apostles? The first disciples? There was no single destiny for them.

LOVE OF GOD

Why should we love God?

– Because this is an act of creation in itself. Of helping to perfect Creation. Man’s love of God is a reflection of God’s love for man. It answers it. It is not selfishness or narcissism on the part of God, demanding to be adored. In demanding love, God is demanding help in perfecting the Universe. Love is identical with life. He demands that we live perfectly, and therefore love perfectly. That we love Creation, and most of all that we love God, the centre and essence and fountain of Creation, the source of all love, of all life, of all that is.

EVOLUTION

Evolution seems cruel not only in practice, in the mutual destruction of species for survival, but in design, so that cruelty seems to he an essential element in the original plan. Can this be by God’s Will?

– No. It is because of the Fall. The Fall introduced death and killing into the design of Nature.

Do you mean that the Fall of the Angels led to the existence of the material world?

– No. That led to the creation of man and ideal Nature. The Fall of man led to the world you see.

This we have always been told, without it seeming very convincing. How does it happen? How does evolution happen? Is it by blind chance? By a million experiments, of which one succeeds by helping survival?

– No. There is guidance.

From God?

– Ultimately from God. But immediately from spirits. Each species, each group of creatures within a species, has a guiding spirit.

In the sense of a guardian angel?

– No. Of a driving force, an intelligence superior to the species and yet arising from it and dwelling in it.

So that for example there is an Ideal Rat or Raven or Dragonfly, somehow moulding the species under its guidance towards its own ideal of perfection?

– Yes.

And do these Ideal Creatures themselves undergo change and evolution?

– Yes. They themselves are under the guidance of higher spirits.

Are these spirits from God?

– Ultimately, yes. All is from God.

Yet some seem indescribably cruel. Not many, but some. Cruel beyond any necessity of survival.

– The Devil has His share in this as in everything.

So that some species, some types of creatures, are actually guided by the Devil, and not according to any plan devised by God?

– Yes. Not only has the Devil altered the total plan by bringing death into it, but in some aspects of the plan He has gained complete control.

The guiding spirits you speak of – are they what we call elementals?

– No. They are great and powerful spirits, doing God’s work, for the most part.

Are they less than angels?

– Yes.

But greater than men?

– Some of them have been men, in your sense of the word. When some men die, their spirits are set to this work for God.

What are elementals?

– They are spirits. Less than human, and yet capable of becoming part of a human spirit. Ten elementals grouped together in the right way could become a human spirit. Or a nature spirit.

Have they anything to do with the spirits of places that you told me about?

– They can be simple forms of the spirits of place. There is evolution in the spirit world as in the material world. There is just as great complexity, and far greater beauty. To give you an image of evolution, imagine a vast and wonderful landscape struck by an earthquake that shatters everything into fragments. Then attempt to reconstruct that landscape from the fragments, while at the same time a powerful enemy does everything He can to interfere, to distort your efforts, destroy your successes, introduce vileness where there was beauty. That is evolution, material and spiritual.

Are things ever possessed by spirits, or occupied by them, as you say places are? A statue, or any object?

– Yes, it can happen. If worshippers call spirits into an object they may be answered.

Are these spirits elementals?

– No. They will be of a level appropriate to the worshippers’ intentions. Pagans have called such spirits gods. They may also be devils. In either case they may be both intelligent and powerful.

Is this what Africans have called fetish worship?

– Yes. The object may be anything. A piece of wood, or of stone, or a bundle of things. The intention of the worshippers is what counts.

Must they have psychic power?

– No. Psychic power does not give a human being control over spirits. It puts him in touch with them and he may have the illusion of power over them. But in fact he is giving them power over him. Hence the danger. And the fact that those who boast of psychic power are rarely able to demonstrate it successfully under rigorous conditions. The force they imagine they control betrays them out of malice or because it is obliged to by a greater force.

Do those who have spiritual power ever wish to use it in order to call spirits down into an object? Into a statue or a stone?

– No. But the spirit may come in order to serve them. Either for good or evil.

Do spirits ever occupy an object of their own accord? So that it becomes ‘lucky’ or ‘unlucky’ to the owner? People often believe they possess a lucky talisman or charm, or that some object they own ‘brings them luck’. Can this be true?

– Yes. A spirit may use an object as a channel of communication with a human being. To that extent the spirit occupies it. According to the spirit’s intentions the object may then bring good or bad fortune to the owner.

This seems somehow immoral and unChristian?

– No. A Christian believes that certain objects are channels of Grace, and therefore of the highest good fortune. His Rosary beads, a Crucifix, Holy Water, relics.

Those things, of course. But a gambler may believe he possesses lucky dice, or an actress may treasure a hare’s-foot as her good luck charm. Are such things ever truly channels of good fortune?

– No. But people who believe in such things expose and open themselves to spiritual influences, good and bad. They are like people floating in the sea, now lifted up by a wave and now dropped down into a trough, regardless of their own wishes.

And someone who does not believe in such talismans?

– He is like a man walking on dry land, and choosing his path.

You seem to be saying that there is no real influence in the object itself?

– No. Some objects have influence concentrated in them, usually evil, like psychic batteries. Some famous jewels are like this.

Do some have equivalent concentrations of spiritual grace?

– Yes. I have said this to you.

But not a lucky coin, or a charm, or a hare’s-foot?

– No. Good influences do not work in this way. Even a relic is not important in itself. One sincere prayer has more value than a thousand relics.

Are any of the famous relics genuine? Pieces of the True Cross for example?

– No. They are all false. The pieces of the True Cross, the nails, the thorns, the Holy Shroud, paintings by St. Luke, all are fraudulent. Your reason tells you this. No value was set on the originals until long after they were lost and destroyed.

Turning aside from all kinds of religion, do objects ever develop a kind of consciousness? Sailors for example often imagine that their ship possesses a personality.

– Yes. This can happen. It is a low level of consciousness.

Can it develop?

– Not beyond a certain very limited level.

Can even a very humble object do the same?

– Yes. Even a walking stick, an article of clothing. It absorbs life from its possessor. Hence the ability of dowsers to trace a missing person through an object belonging to them, or of fortune tellers to ‘see’ the future of the owner, through holding an object.

Do such objects have feelings, desires?

– No. Only a vibration of life. Like a blade of grass.

Does this vibration last long?

– It can last for centuries.

Is this why dowsers can tell the age of objects dug up from archaeological sites, or of standing stones?

– Yes.

Could a dowser tell more than the age? Could he learn facts about the owner or users of the object?

– Yes. He could learn almost anything he wished to know.

About any period of history or prehistory? However ancient?

– No. If it is too old the vibrations will have grown too weak for him to react to them.

Are there other limitations?

– No.

Can anyone develop this faculty of dowsing over objects?

– No. They possess it or they do not. But many possess it without knowing it.

Can anyone who can dowse for water also dowse over objects in this way?

– Yes.

Can some people dowse over objects without being able to dowse for water?

– Yes.

And this is by using psychic power?

– Yes. Consequently it has its dangers. It should never be used as a game or for frivolous ends.

Is it right to use it for scientific ends?

– Yes.

And its results could be checked against knowledge gained by other means?

– Yes. Just as a water dowser’s findings can be checked by the fact that water is really there. There is nothing magic or supernatural about it. It is a faculty which men possessed long ago and that has atrophied through disuse. It was originally a hunting faculty. It allowed hunters to find water, and from droppings or other traces to find and follow game, even game that had passed that way long before. And it had many other uses. The hunters who possessed this faculty most strongly were regarded as leaders, and shamans. They were always men. Whereas in their cults the spiritual side of life was entrusted to women. The women were guardians of fertility. The men put the fruits of that fertility into the service of the tribe.

FORTUNE TELLING

Are all fortune tellers and those who claim to tell the future, frauds?

– No. Many are truthful.

Are they all evil?

– No. It is sometimes a gift from God, for a special purpose.

Even fortune tellers at fair grounds?

– It could be. Usually they are simple rogues, but they can have psychic power.

Not spiritual power?

– No. Spiritual power is very rare. Its owner would not use it in a fair ground, or to tell fortunes. He might prophesy the future if he was ordered to, by God’s Will.

And God might also wish a fortune teller with psychic power to tell fortunes, or prophesy?

– Yes. For many reasons. For an individual’s benefit, or for a more general warning. Usually it would be for a private person’s good.

There are cases where individuals have suddenly been granted a vision of the future, or of the futures of certain people. And yet these visions did not serve any purpose, or save anyone from their destiny.

– You cannot say that. You are thinking of people who foresee disasters, and yet no one heeds the warning. Perhaps one person heeds it, and that was the purpose of the vision.

Just before the French Revolution an aristocrat foretold the Terror, and the deaths of a number of his friends. Were any of them saved because of his warning?

– No.

Then what was the purpose?

– Some of them remembered, and prepared their souls in time.

ON HEARING

Will you tell me how to ‘hear’?

– You are hearing.

I know. But explain to me how it’s done.

– You listen. As you would to any distant sound, putting all other sounds out of your mind.

Nothing happens.

– Then ask a question. An intelligent, wise question. Nothing to do with the future, or personal gain. Like the question that begins this conversation. Ask, and listen. If the question is simple, requiring only ‘Yes’ or ‘No’ for an answer, such as ‘Can anyone hear?’, it will be easy to hear and understand the answer. It will be like a silent voice inside your head, using your own mental tone and vocabulary, saying “Yes. Yes. Anyone can hear. I repeat it. Yes, anyone can hear.”

And if the question is more complicated?

– Then concentrate even more carefully.

But one hears confusing answers. Voices saying No! No! to contradict the Yes!

– It is like tuning a radio. You will hear many stations. You must tune your mind accurately. And you must have prepared yourself by a long discipline. Of diet and behaviour.

But how does one begin?

– Like everything else, simply. By asking questions requiring only yes or no for an answer. Gradually the answer will become stronger and clearer and more full. Questions and answers will be put into your mind.

How can one tell the answers are from God and not the Devil?

– By asking. The Devil cannot claim to speak for God. Ask if the power that answers worships God.

And should one ask if it also abominates the Devil?

– No. God does not abominate the Devil. He created Him. He loves Him as He loves all that He has created. He longs for His return to Heaven.

But the foolish, contradictory answers. Are they from the Devil?

– Sometimes. Or from mischievous spirits, the kind that interfere at seances or with the planchette.

Is there danger in ‘hearing’ or trying to ‘hear’?

– If the motive is wrong, great danger.

Does one hear by psychic or by spiritual power?

– I have told you. By either. It is the psychic hearing that is dangerous.

Even after preparation, and listening carefully, can one still make mistakes?

– Yes. It is a difficult discipline.

Can I be sure that in these conversations I have heard and understood right?

– Yes. I am making sure of that. When you make mistakes I make you go back and correct them.

People will think I am claiming spiritual power, a spiritual gift – that I am claiming to interpret God’s Will and even worse than that. That I am contradicting the Scriptures and claiming to know things known only to God. They will say I am mad.

– Yes.

What can I do?

– Nothing. Do what I tell you. Listen, and write. In time I will ask you to see as well.

ON DREAMS

Do dreams have any deep meaning for us?

– They can have.

Do we ever see the future in them?

– Sometimes. Usually in a distorted way. When you are asleep you are in touch with your Real Mind, that sees both past and future in the same way that a man standing on a height can see a certain distance in all directions.

Why does it have to be a distorted way?

– It does not have to be. It usually is because in sleep your physical mind is asleep. It takes in impressions without system or order.

Do we ever receive warnings of coming trouble in our dreams?

– Yes.

As a vague foreboding or more clearly?

– Both. Sometimes the warnings are clear, sometimes vague.

How can we tell whether a dream is really a warning, or simply a nightmare from eating too much?

– Usually you cannot. But if your Real Mind or some other being wishes to warn you, they will make it clear enough.

Some people claim to interpret all dreams, either as indications of the future, or as having a psychological meaning. Is this possible?

– No. Most dreams have no meaning.

Are some dreams not dreams at all, but visions?

– Yes.

How can one tell that it is a vision and not a dream?

– You will be told.

DOWSING AND WITCHCRAFT

When one uses a pendulum for dowsing, or for questioning about the age of objects, or to ask where something or some person is, who is it that answers?

– One’s Real Mind. Usually.

Does one’s Real Mind know everything?

– Not everything. But many things.

Will it always tell everything it knows? Answer any question to which it knows the answer?

– No. It depends on whether the questioner needs to know.

Will it answer anyone who questions?

– No. Only those who question in the right way, after the right preparation.

And does a questioner need to have a gift or power for getting in touch with his Real Mind, as well as a right method, and a right preparation?

– No. Anyone can do it. But the preparation is hard. And the method must be right. Also the type and form of the questions must be right. One must not ask frivolous questions, or questions for material benefit, or about the future. I have told you all this before.

Who else is it besides the Real Mind who may answer?

– There are many other spirits that may answer, and there is the danger. They may be evil. The wrong questions, and the wrong attitude, will attract evil spirits.

Might they also be good spirits?

– Yes. But these would answer you through your Real Mind

One’s Real Mind would refuse to allow evil spirits to use it as a channel?

– Yes. Naturally.

But angels might use it?

– Yes. God Himself might use it.

Does the questioner use psychic power?

– No. Not to answer good spirits, and the Real Mind.

Does he use spiritual power?

– Yes. In such cases.

Yet you have told me that dowsers use psychic power?

– Yes.

Is that to find lost objects, or lost people, or the bodies of murdered people? Do they use psychic power for that?

– Yes. I have told you. Power is a continuum, with mental power occupying a band between the spiritual and psychic bands of this spectrum. As one expands one’s ability to receive information, to be influenced by phenomena, one’s faculties are opened to both psychic and spiritual influences. A dowser can use both. Either may give him the information he desires.

Does he need the hard preparation you have spoken about?

– No. He is born with a sensitivity, a natural gift, that others can only achieve by hard effort.

Is a dowser the kind of man that in primitive cultures became a shaman, or a witch doctor?

– Yes.

I am still confused about the power he uses. Does he himself generate and use power, like a type of strength, or does he simply receive influences, like a radio receiver?

– If you think of a radio receiver that is normally tuned to the medium wave band, it will give you an image. It can be retuned to the short wave band, or to the long wave band. The power involved does not belong to the receiver, but to the distant transmitter. The receiver needs only a minimum of power to make it ‘alive’ and receptive. Nevertheless, some receivers are both more powerful and more sensitive than others. And all need to be accurately tuned and adjusted if they are to receive correctly.

And there are many transmitters? Some good, some evil?

– Yes. Those that are good will give information that is of legitimate concern and value to the questioner. Those that are evil will give any answer that tends to put the questioner into the power of evil. This may take a long time, but it is always the purpose.

When a dowser ‘receives’ information, is he conscious of which type of power he is receiving? From what source, psychic or spiritual?

– No. Unless he has trained himself to be aware,

Is it his own muscles that cause the pendulum or the forked stick to move?

– No. It is the power of the transmitter. A dowser’s muscles are sometimes trying to prevent the forked stick from moving, and are sometimes neutral. They never move it in the case of a genuine dowser.

And for a pendulum?

– The dowser’s muscles simply remain neutral.

Why do dowsers so often fail when they are being tested by scientists?

– A number of reasons. If the scientists’ minds are hostile to the idea of dowsing, they interfere with the dowser’s ability to receive information. We have spoken of the dowser’s mind as a radio receiver, but this is merely an image. It is also a transmitter, of very limited power. So is every mind. One mind can interfere with another.

The scientist’s mind may interfere with the dowser’s, preventing it working properly as a receiver. Or it may affect it so that a malicious or evil spirit answers the dowser’s question, with the intention of discrediting the dowser, and the gift or art of dowsing.

All this sounds like witchcraft. Not only will no scientist believe it, but no dowser will want to believe it.

– That cannot be helped. Witchcraft means wisdom, knowledge of a particular kind. This is witchcraft. Or a part of it.

And flying on broomsticks?

– Think back on the things I have been telling you. Out-of-the-body travel for instance. This is what witches do. And always did. The broomstick was merely an implement, like the dowser’s forked stick or pendulum.

So that witchcraft was a reality?

– Yes. It still is. I told you so earlier.

Am I using witchcraft to obtain these answers?

– No. Witchcraft is concerned with psychic power only.

Is it evil?

– Not necessarily. It can be good or evil. But it is always dangerous to use, because of its psychic nature. It brings the witch into contact with evil spirits.

Historians have described mediaeval witchcraft as a remnant of paganism. Are they right?

– Yes. It is a type of nature worship.

Were all the worshippers gifted with psychic power?

– No. Only the inner circle, that formed the coven, and these unequally.

Was it an organised religion, with rules and teaching and a hierarchy of authority?

– No. Only a loose knit organisation or framework.

Was each coven independent?

– No. A number of covens would recognise a higher authority over them.

Would there be a central authority for a whole country? A high priest, or head witch?

– In earlier days, yes. As persecution began to destroy the organisation this became impossible. Everything degenerated into fragments.

Was there contact between the witches of one country and another?

– Not usually. Between the heads of the cult it sometimes happened.

Did they worship the Devil?

– No. I have told you. They worshipped forces of nature, to which they gave names. One of these names they borrowed from their persecutors, the Devil.

Were there only women witches?

– Of course not. There were both men and women and children among the worshippers, and men and women in the covens.

You say they did not worship the Devil in the Christian sense of Devil, but did they not sometimes practise evil?

– Yes. And more and more so as they were persecuted and made outcasts. They turned to evil, and in reality to the Devil, for revenge against Christians and society.

Did they have familiar spirits in the shape of animals? Cats and toads and so on?

– Yes. Like a fetish these creatures served to house the spirits the witches called to them.

Did the spirits come because they were called?

– No. Because they wanted to. As in the case of a fetish.

Was it right to persecute the witches?

– No. It was wrong and cruel. All persecution is wrong. It is a black page in Christianity’s history, one of many black pages.

Yet the Bible says ‘thou shalt not suffer a witch to live’. It was on this text the persecution was based.

– The Bible says many things. Not all of them are true. Of those that were true, not all remained true.

How can we tell which commands are true and which are false, or no longer true?

– Use your intelligence. And ask if Christ would have approved? Would Christ have burned a witch?

Yet millions of victims have been burned and tortured in the name of Christ. The Holy Inquisition did terrible things for Christ’s sake.

– Not for His sake. Christ wept tears of blood at what it did in His name. No one should defend cruelty in the name of Christ, or God, or religion. All cruelty is evil.

Yet people speak of being cruel to be kind. Of cutting out the cancer to save the body. Christ Himself spoke in this way. He said if one’s hand offends one, to cut it off.

– He did not tell you to cut off someone else’s hand. Or to pluck out someone else’s eye. Even as figures of speech He was careful to say that this was to be a sternness with one’s self, not a savagery towards others.

Could there be a life without any cruelty? Without any punishments?

– Not in this world. Only in the world to come. But this world is what you have made it. Christianity is what your world has made it. Only the essence of it remains uncorrupted, like a jewel buried in mud.

DOWSING

I am still not certain that I understand where the information comes from when one seeks it by spiritual or psychic means.

– Ultimately from Me. All knowledge that ever was and is and will be is in My mind. Some of that knowledge is also in the minds that I have created. The minds of angels, of devils, of men. In what I have taught you to call Real Minds, and greater minds. As in the world you turn to libraries, or to other men or women for information, so in spiritual or psychic matters you turn to other minds. The way in which you do so, the kind of information you are seeking, the motives you have for seeking it, determine what mind or minds will answer you.

ON THE REAL MIND

You have told me that our Real Minds watch over us. Do they try to help us at every moment of our lives?

– No. Only when the human being asks for help, in the right way, and with a right motive.

How does the Real Mind help?

– By advice, by guidance, by protection.

If a man or woman is in danger from evil, from the Devil, and does not know how to ask for help, would their Real Mind intervene unasked?

– No.

Yet you have said that occasionally warning comes to an individual from the Real Mind, sometimes by way of a dream?

– Yes. But this depends on the attitude of the individual’s own mind. There are many ways of asking for help.

Is the Real Mind very powerful?

– In comparison to the individual, yes. In comparison to an angel, no.

But you have said that a human being may become an angel?

– By way of his Real Mind, yes. The Real Mind perfects itself, by the perfection of its individual souls, and is raised to greater power by that perfection. The human being shares in this. Each individual in the Real Mind enjoys the totality of this perfection, this greater power and excellence.

How many individual human beings make up a Real Mind? You said several hundred. As many as a thousand?

– About one thousand.

Do they all live in this world at the same time? Belong to the same generation?

– No.

Or to the same part of the world?

– No.

Do some of them live in the same period, and the same place? The same country, for example?

– Yes. It is likely that even most, or nearly all of them will, but not all.

Will they be likely to know one another as acquaintances? Friends? You have said they might feel a sympathy for one another at meeting, beyond that ordinarily felt by two individuals meeting for the first time?

– Not necessarily at a first meeting or always. They are completely separate from one another. Their connection is with the Real Mind, not with one another. But if their lives are following a right path they will feel sympathy, and friendship, or even love.

Then they are not like bees of the same hive for example, that recognise fellow workers instantly?

– No.

Do husbands and wives usually belong to the same Real Mind?

– Ideally they should as I told you earlier. It makes for a happier and more stable marriage. But they may not. It depends on their wise choice of partner.

Yet if there is no automatic sympathy, how can a man tell that a woman belongs to his own Real Mind, or he to hers?

– By asking. I told you this also. By praying for guidance. Any couple, even if they have no knowledge of such matters as we are discussing, should ask for God’s guidance in their plans to marry. If they ask, they will receive.

When a Real Mind perfects itself, does it become then what we would call an angel? A powerful servant of God’s Will?

– No. It requires many Real Minds united together to make such a spirit. Perhaps a million of them.

So that there might be a billion individual souls, a million Real Minds, each one perfected, and all become one spirit, to form an angelic spirit?

– Yes.

Are all angels of that kind and origin?

– No. Some were as they are from the beginning, from their creation.

And the others? How did the difference arise? Did God mean there to be two kinds from the beginning, those that He created at once, and those that became angelic by means of becoming human beings, and then Real Minds, and then angels?

– This was not God’s original plan. When Satan fell there were not only angels who fell with him, and others who remained faithful, but some who wavered in their faithfulness. To these a second chance was given as Adam and mankind.

So that the material from which mankind is made, so to speak the spiritual material, is angelic in origin ? Before our human fall in Adam, we shared in the Angelic Fall? We have fallen twice over?

– Yes. All Creation is spiritual, and all spirit is of the same nature. An emanation from God’s mind, from God Himself. It is not sensible to divide the Creation into angelic and human and animal. All is of God s spirit, and all must be perfected so that it may return to Him.

ON PRAYER

There is only one perfect prayer.

What is that?

– Thy Will be done.

But if God’s Will is not being done? If someone is ill or miserable? May we not pray for them to be made well, or happy?

– If that is God’s Will for them at that moment, yes. Pray that God’s Will be done. That is all that is needed.

Christ taught us to pray for our daily bread.

– That is God’s Will, that you should have it. And all else that is good for you, that protects you from evil, and leads you to Perfection.

ACTIVE POWER

You said that dowsers receive power rather than use it. That they are influenced by a force outside themselves. But some people use psychic power to obtain physical results. To move or bend objects, to defy gravity themselves, and so on. Is this a different kind of person altogether?

– No. I have told you that the image of the radio receiver and the transmitter is only an image. That an individual sensitive enough to be influenced by psychic power can also transmit it, so to speak, to a limited extent. In this way he or she can achieve these trivial physical results. But I have already told you how trivial they are, and puerile.

Could someone use psychic power for less trivial results? To combat evil for example?

– No. Or only with great difficulty, and great danger to themselves. This is because psychic power is the Devil’s own particular strength. To use it against the Devil is to invite disaster.

Is this why priests who exorcise evil spirits often have breakdowns, or even die as a result of the exorcism?

– No. A priest uses spiritual, not psychic power to exorcise evil spirits. And it is only a legend that it harms the priest.

Can someone who is not a priest use spiritual power in this way? Against evil spirits?

– Yes. If he has gained that kind of power he will know how and when to use it.

Would he use it purely to defend himself? Or would he attack evil where he found it, or heard of it?

– He would use it to attack evil. This is the work of the Essenes, and of their servants.

Would they use it to correct injustice, or to punish evil doers? To punish human beings who had escaped or defied human justice?

– They might.

There seems to be so much injustice in the world that they cannot often succeed?

– They do not often intervene at this level. There are many and more serious ways in which ordinary injustice is punished.

You mean after the unjust man dies?

– Yes.

Yet if we have only this life as human beings, and there is no Hell in the ordinary sense of the word, how are such people punished?

– If they have served evil in their lifetime in the world they will be in the power of evil when they die. That is sufficient punishment. You have seen one minor evil spirit, and something of other evil forces. Can you imagine being in their power?

Yes. Or perhaps I cannot.

– Then go in fear of it. The Devil is not a children’s story.

Should it be one’s ambition to gain spiritual power, and to use it against evil?

– Yes. This is the way to perfection.

Is it dangerous?

– No. But it is very hard.

Does the effort not attract evil spirits, and the special enmity of the Devil?

– Yes.

Is this not dangerous?

– No. What is dangerous is to try, and fail.

Surely this is like saying that climbing a mountain is not dangerous, it is only dangerous if you fall?

– Yes. I am answering the questions as you ask them. Try to be exact.

ON POLITICS

Should a Christian interest himself in politics?

– Yes. He should strive to make life better for his community.

Is there one political system rather than another that he should support?

– It must depend on circumstances. He may have to choose between two unsatisfactory systems. This will usually be the case.

Could he support a dictator?

– Yes. If that seemed best to him at the time.

Could he support Communism?

– No. Never.

Yet Communists often seem more concerned for justice and human rights than some democracies?

– They seem so. But their ultimate goal is to enslave men, and destroy the life of the spirit. Democracies fall below their ideals, but their ideals are good.

Then should every Christian support democracy?

– Where that is possible, yes. But the name of democracy is often misused. He must he careful to know what he is really supporting.

In an unjust regime, may the Christian resist authority?

– Yes. At times he must do so.

May he intrigue or plot to overthrow a deeply unjust Regime?

– No.

You mean he may resist passively, but not actively?

– Yes.

If he saw or knew of fellow citizens being unjustly ill-treated by authority, might he go to their assistance with physical force?

– No.

If he was ordered by the authorities to ill-treat fellow citizens for an unjust reason, should he obey?

– No.

If a rebellion took place, might he join in?

– No.

If he was ordered to fight an enemy of his country in what he considered an unjust war, should he obey?

– No.

Should he obey if the war seemed just, or he had no means of telling whether it was just or not?

– Yes.

So that he might use violence then, as a soldier?

– Yes.

If during that war he was ordered to commit an unjust act, or what he thought might be an unjust act, should he refuse to obey?

– Yes.

Even if Christian bishops appeared to sanction an unjust war, or the unjust act, should he still refuse to obey?

– Yes. In such matters a bishop’s authority is no greater than any other man’s.

If a rebellion against an unjust regime began to succeed, and led to civil war, might he enlist on the side of the rebels?

– Yes.

This seems like advising cowardice? Only to join in when the rebel cause looked like succeeding?

– No. Prudence.

Is that not another name for cowardice? If everyone was prudent no unjust tyrant would ever be overthrown?

– This is not true. God has many ways of overthrowing tyrants. Rebellion is not the best of them, and even where it succeeds it may bring worse evils in its train than those against which it is fighting.

Then must the Christian in, for example, a Communist dictatorship, wait passively for an Act of God to liberate him and his fellow Christians?

– Yes.

And in such a case he should play no part in politics at all?

– That is only partly correct. He should take part by example He should pray. He should strive to develop spiritual power, and to perfect himself. In this way he, or she, will be of far greater value to his fellow citizens than by engaging in political intrigues or rebellions that will almost certainly fail, and bring worse repression as a result of their failure.

Supposing someone plotting against the regime were to ask him for help; to carry a message; to hide something; to keep a secret; or to shelter a fugitive? Should he do any of these things or should he refuse?

– He should refuse.

Even to shelter a fugitive? A brave man or woman who would be killed or tortured if he refused to shelter them?

– If it was to save a life he should shelter the fugitive.

Then you are contradicting yourself?

– No. You are putting an extreme case. There the Christian would have to use his intelligence, and his knowledge of the particular circumstances. There are many kinds of fugitive. But I have told you, this world is not the whole of existence, nor the most important part of it, nor is death in this world the worst that can happen to you. Politics and rebellion are not of great significance compared to true reality.

Are there any circumstances in which a Christian can justly take up arms against an unjust government?

– Yes. There are extreme cases.

To defend the true interests of the Church, for example? Or to resist genocide, or intolerable oppression?

– Yes. But one must be very careful to distinguish the true interests of the Church from the merely material interests of the clergy, or the worshippers.

May a Christian seek to escape from oppression by going into exile, even by illegal means?

– Yes. But all these questions depend on special circumstances. One must judge each case by faith and intelligence and prayer.

Might a Christian kill a tyrant?

– No.

Even though he knew the tyrant was about to kill thousands of innocent people, and his death would prevent this massacre?

– The answer is still no. It would be murder, and the murderer would be taking God’s justice into his own hands without permission.

You seem to be teaching almost total submission to injustice? It is said that for evil to triumph all that is necessary is for good men to do nothing. Is not that what you are telling them to do?

– No. I am telling good men to do good, and not evil. There are many better ways of resisting tyranny than by committing murder.

May a Christian kill to defend his own life? Or the life or virtue of his wife or daughter, or a friend?

– Yes.

Then in such a case he might even kill the tyrant, or the tyrant’s servants?

– Yes.

Yet you have just said that he may not kill the tyrant even though he knows the tyrant is about to kill thousands of innocent people? Where is the difference? Surely the saving of thousands is more virtuous than the saving of one’s own life?

– No. In the one case, in saving your own life, or another’s life, or a woman from rape, or the preliminaries of rape, there is certainty. The offence and defence are simultaneous or almost so. In the other case there is merely supposition. You cannot be certain that the deaths will occur; that the tyrant will not alter his mind, or that some other force will not intervene.

That seems to me the sort of reasoning that gives the Jesuits a bad name.

– I am sorry. The Jesuits often reason correctly. All the way through this conversation you are putting extreme cases. I have told you, each one would need to be judged on its merits, very carefully, and wisely. In general, such cases only arise if already good men have done nothing for a considerable period, thus allowing these situations to come about. I answer your extreme cases with extreme replies. Nevertheless they are correct replies.

Jesus told His disciples that if they had no sword they should sell even their clothes to buy one. Did He mean that in a literal sense?

– No. He was speaking figuratively, of spiritual weapons. His whole teaching was to turn from this world towards the next, to live in the physical world as a traveller on a journey.

ON RESISTANCE MOVEMENTS

If one’s country is occupied by an enemy, and one’s own government surrenders, may a Christian continue to resist the occupying authorities?

– No.

If not by force of arms, may he or she resist passively, by sabotage, or civil disobedience?

– No.

Must one cooperate with the occupying power, and obey all their regulations?

– If those regulations do not conflict with a Christian’s other duties, yes.

If a patriot who is resisting asks for help, may the Christian give it?

– If that help conflicts with what I have just told you, no.

Even if this means that the Christian might be accused of cooperating with the enemy? Of being a collaborator?

– Yes. The Christian’s duty towards established authority is to obey it, unless that disobedience infringes the moral law.

But in a case where there are two authorities? One established by the enemy, the other perhaps in exile but claiming the allegiance of all patriots? And saying that the surrendering government had no right to surrender? As in France during World War II? May the Christian then obey the authority in exile?

– No.

But surely this is to advise cowardice and collaboration with the enemy?

– No. Those are not the motives for the advice. A Christian’s social duties are towards his neighbours. He should not do anything that would bring certain danger on them for an uncertain temporal reward.

Then do you condemn all the resistance movements during World War II?

– Yes. All violence is to be condemned.

Yet you approve of defensive wars?

– Yes.

What is the difference between a defensive war, and a resistance movement aimed at recovering a nation’s freedom?

– All the difference possible. The one is undertaken by the whole community of its free will, or by its chosen or accepted authorities. The other is the choice of a small and self-appointed group, whose true motives are unknown to most of its followers. Its actions will result in reprisals, and the death or suffering of immense numbers of innocent people.

If a Christian is asked to collaborate with the occupying power: to continue as a policeman, or a judge, or a civil servant, and to put into force new laws or regulations that are distasteful or worse to his compatriots, should he do this?

– No. He is not obliged to collaborate in that way.

If he was asked to help in saving persecuted people, such as the Jews in Occupied Europe in World War II, should he do so?

– If it can be done without violence, yes. To obey the laws persecuting them would infringe the moral law.

Might he use force against a pursuer or searcher, in order to let a persecuted man or woman escape?

– Yes.

Might he kill?

– No. He might only use enough force to secure his purpose.

Even if by leaving the pursuer alive he knew that he and his family would be arrested and killed?

– I have told you before. A man may in those or similar circumstances only kill in self-defence, or in defence of someone else who is in immediate danger of death or rape.

Might he kill a torturer in the act of torturing someone?

– No. You are again posing extreme cases which cannot have a wide application. In a prison he would not have a chance to do such a thing. Outside it would not be necessary to kill in order to prevent the torture continuing.

I can imagine circumstances where it might be necessary.

– If the circumstances were so extraordinary an exception might need to be made. In all such extreme cases the Christian’s intelligence and conscience must together provide guidance.

MORALITY

Are you serious about the strict morality you have described to me?

– Yes.

But no one could follow it if they are married and if they love their partners. Never to make love except in the expectation or hope of creating a child. Is that really your teaching?

– Yes.

Do you wish a woman to have a child every year of her married life, until she is past childbearing, or dead in childbirth?

– No. I wish couples to have restraint.

So that a couple might make love barely half a dozen times during their whole marriage, if they wanted only two or three children?

– Yes. But again you are putting an extreme and unlikely case. I am speaking of an ideal answer to an extreme situation.

Even as an ideal it seems unthinkable. Do you want to drive people away from the Church, and the idea of God?

– No. But many ideals are unthinkable, in human terms. What is your ideal? Endless promiscuity?

No. But most people would find an ideal between those two extremes.

– All ideals are extremes. Most people fall short of them. But my ideal is the better of the two we have just considered.

But an ideal you cannot achieve is surely useless?

– Sanctity is the ideal for everyone. Is it useless because so few achieve it?

No. But for a married couple is your ideal even desirable or right? Surely love-making creates love, and cements it? You have said so yourself.

– It is desirable, yes. But most lovemaking is not of the kind you describe.

When it is of that kind, do you still condemn it if it is not with the intention of creating a child?

– No. I do not condemn it.

But do you approve it?

– No.

Surely most marriages would collapse if the husband or wife tried to follow your teaching?

– Where promiscuity is the rule most marriages do collapse already.

Even St. Paul said it is better to marry than to burn. And obviously he did not mean a marriage without lovemaking.

– Obviously too he did not mean a marriage without children.

The whole idea seems monstrous. The real effect would be to condemn women to constant pregnancy, as happens in some deeply Catholic countries. Is that what you want?

– No. I have told you what I want. You are making a wrong use of words. You ask me do I approve of lovemaking divorced from creation. The answer must be no, because perfect lovemaking involves creation, and must do so to be perfect. And I can only approve of perfection. But neither do I condemn lovemaking for a true and joyful purpose of wise happiness between lovers, and between husband and wife. I condemn only what is positively wrong. The word you require is tolerate. I tolerate what is imperfect and yet tends towards perfection.

So you do not condemn all joy?

– If you could imagine that I condemn any joy you have understood nothing that I have tried to tell you. I desire all creation to be filled with joy. That was the purpose of Creation. It was an act of pure joy, pure love, injured by disobedience, by a turning away from love and joy towards darkness.

Why must disobedience be a sin? Is this not a kind of tyranny?

– I have answered this before. Man should be obedient to God, and love God not for God’s sake, but for man’s. What God desires is perfection. To disobey God is to desire something less than perfection, and that is sin. According to the degree of turning away, so the sin becomes graver. The Devil’s sin was to turn away completely, to desire to do away with God, and take His place. But in the present state of imperfection, God still desires man to have all possible joy.

Yet you wish him to remain chaste, when to make love is a path to joy?

– Chastity is another path, that some can follow. But within marriage there are many opportunities for true joy. For making love in order to have children that the parents desire, and at times when there is no likelihood of having an undesired child.

That last point seems the real casuistry. What is the difference between making certain that no child will be conceived, and merely hoping it won’t be? Surely the intention counts?

– The intention always counts. And if the intention is mere self satisfaction it becomes lust, and therefore sinful, no matter what means are used or not used to prevent conception. If the intention is to strengthen love between the partners, then the act is good in itself, even if there is no desire for children, providing this lack of desire for children springs from a good motive ; the mother’s health; the family’s circumstances. But if you use physical means, either chemical, or some kind of barrier to the man’s seed, to prevent conception, then you change the nature of the act. The lovemaking is of benefit to the partners. It is a reflection of Creation, of God’s love for His Creation. But this requires total unity, physical, spiritual and psychic. By placing a barrier between the partners you damage the nature of the act. What should have been beneficial becomes harmful. It is as though you placed a drop of arsenic in a glass of wine. Your mistake is in thinking of lovemaking as a purely physical act. This is the least of its qualities.

I accept all that you say, although I do not understand it. But it still seems to me wrong to gamble with the chance of conception, when conception would be injurious to the woman’s health, or to the stability of the marriage. And to preach this kind of doctrine to ignorant people who have never learned restraint of any kind seems a sheer waste of time.

– Truth cannot be altered to suit the ignorance of the hearers. What you must try to alter is the ignorance. I know that what I am teaching is difficult. Only the Devil’s teaching is easy.

But your teaching seems aimed against women. They are the ones who pay the price of it. They bear the children. Their bodies are destroyed. They are the ones left to stand the strain of too many pregnancies, of too many children in too small a space, with too little money. Or to fear the husband’s drunken return because it may mean another unwanted pregnancy.

– The world is full of terrible things. This is one of them. The solution is not to compromise with evil, but to conquer it, and to regain perfection by sacrifice. If you look at such questions in a purely physical light, we can never agree, and you can never understand. Only if you accept that the physical world is of less importance than the spiritual world, can you begin to understand and accept.

Again I have to accept. But can I ask about abortion? Are there any circumstances in which you would approve, or even tolerate, abortion?

– None.

Even if a child was raped by a diseased lunatic, who would transmit his disease and madness to the baby?

– Not even then. The child who has been raped should be surrounded with such loving care that she would be strengthened for the birth, and the baby should be cared for in the same way. All life belongs to God.

This kind of teaching has driven sensitive, good people away from the Church and all religion.

– Because their sensitivity and goodness is of this world, and not of the real world of the spirit.

But all that you teach is against our instincts, against the nature that God has given us.

– God gave you a perfect nature. You spoiled it by the Fall. The ‘nature’ you speak of is no longer God’s in the true sense, but man’s. And if your present nature urges you to unceasing fornication, that is not God’s, part in you, but your own. I promise you, it is a long way from perfection.

I am not asking for unceasing fornication, or even lovemaking. But people become ill from too much puritanical restraint.

– Do they? We spoke of this before. Perhaps it is from restraint inspired by the wrong motives? Not by love of God and a longing for perfection, but by hatred of life, and fear of joy? Think of those who are born crippled, or insane, or impotent, who can never enjoy a natural life of the senses. Their deprivation is more terrible than that of any healthy married couple or pair of true lovers, who should at times restrain themselves, yet I never hear, or very rarely, anyone discuss the former hardships. You seem to be asking that those who already have much, should have more, while caring not at all for those who have nothing. But let me repeat myself. If you consider this life as your only life, and this world as the only world, then both are full of inexplicable injustices, and irrational cruelties. If you consider them for what they truly are, stages on a long journey, then you may begin to understand them. Man was created by God. Man fell of his own will. Man has been redeemed by God. But he must help towards his redemption. In those words are all the truth you need to know. The rest is commentary.

TEACHERS

There have been many teachers of mystic philosophy in recent years. All say the West has followed a mistaken path, and offer to show the right one, whether by diet, or drugs, or contemplation, or yoga, or a combination of these things. Are any of these teachers to be believed?

– What do you think?

All of them seem to possess fragments of the truth.

– They do. Although a few of them have wicked or wrong intentions. If you examine what I have told you, you will find that such teachers reflect many of the things I have explained to you.

Yet none of these teachers would be acceptable to the Church.

– Are you sure? Does the Church forbid you to do yoga exercises, or follow a vegetarian diet, or to contemplate Infinity? Does the Church deny the reality of sorcery?

The Church would forbid the use of drugs, even for a mystic purpose.

– So would I. So would all wise teachers. Drugs are unnecessary for the trained mystic, and highly dangerous for the untrained and the amateur. In the end they are fatal. I have told you this already. I would repeat it again and again. It cannot be emphasised enough.

Yet some cultures have used drugs for mystic purposes, century after century?

– They were wrong to do so. It was a way for untrained individuals to share the experiences of trained priests and sorcerers. It injured them physically, and spiritually.

You mention sorcerers without condemnation?

– A sorcerer may be good or evil. The Church and the Bible condemn evil sorcerers. Modern Christians have forgotten that there were and are two kinds of sorcery. The word is simply a name for an individual who has developed psychic power. Many such exist and use their powers for good ends, or tolerable ends. But the practice is dangerous as I have said, and the Church is wise to forbid its members to dabble in such things.

May not a Christian become a dowser, then?

– A dowser is born, not made. And there are exceptions to all rules. The Church would forbid you to undergo a total fast for forty days, as being dangerous and close to suicide. Yet Jesus underwent such a fast, and so have many others on the path to sanctity. Such rules as those are like safety rules that can be suspended in particular cases. As an image, think of an ambulance or a fire engine that is permitted to exceed the speed limit. That does not mean that those who imposed the speed limit were wrong to do so.

Could a Christian practise Zen Buddhism?

– If he understood it, and had a wise reason for doing so, yes.

Would he still remain a true Christian?

– Yes, if he remained one in other ways. Zen Buddhism would not prevent him from being one.

Yet Buddha taught things that are quite different from Christ’s teaching, surely?

– How much do you know of either?

Then would it be possible to combine Christianity and Buddhism into one faith?

– Yes. Both have been distorted, by their followers. But both religions are paths to God.

Was Buddha Christ in another Incarnation?

– No. I told you, he was a man who found union with God, sanctity. He was a forerunner of Christ. He taught Christ’s message of love for all Creation, of purity and the love of God.

Yet Buddhists seem to have no God? Do they not look for Nirvana, for Nothingness?

– You are wrong. The true Buddhist teaching is a clear reflection of the reality of God.

Yet you have told me that only the Catholic Church holds the truth?

– Only the Catholic Church holds the entire truth. And some of it has been obscured by distorted teaching.

I thought that the Church could not teach error?

– Only in certain matters. The Church is saved from error in essential truth. Not in all aspects of the truth. The Church has taught at times that witches and heretics should be burned. That men are entitled to beat their wives. That unbaptised children go to Hell, or that they can never be received in Heaven. All this teaching was false and cruel. It did not touch the essential truth of man’s redemption, but it distorted truth nevertheless.

Do you mean then that Buddhists and Catholics could and should combine into one greater religion?

– Yes. It is not likely to happen, but it would be desirable and good.

Yet you have told me that Protestants do not possess spiritual truth. Are Catholics closer to Buddhism than to Protestantism?

– Yes. In rejecting the Real Presence of God in the Eucharist, Protestants have cut themselves off from spiritual truth. They have become materialists. A Buddhist could accept the Real Presence more easily than a devout Protestant could.

Do the Orthodox and Eastern churches hold the truth?

– Only in part. In rejecting the Primacy of Peter they are wrong. Only through Peter can the truth be preserved.

Then is the Ecumenical movement wrong?

– No. But it is bound to fail for the reasons I have just given you. These are truths about which there can be no compromise. The position of Mary the Mother of God is another.

You have told me that Mary is truly the Holy Spirit. Will the Catholic Church itself be able to accept that?

– In time. The doctrines of the Immaculate Conception and the Assumption have been steps towards that acceptance. It will become the Church’s most glorious doctrine, together with the Resurrection.

If Buddhists could in theory accept these truths, could Hindus?

– Yes. In one sense more easily. In another sense they would bring attitudes of mind to them that would make full acceptance more difficult.

And Jews?

– It would be impossible for Jews, unless they were to cease being Orthodox, and therefore to cease being Jews.

Could Moslems accept?

– No. Like Jews, they would have to give up their own Orthodoxy.

Are you teaching things that a wise Catholic priest, a good theologian, could not accept?

– No. He might not be ready to accept them now, but on reflection he would find nothing that he could not accept.

Catholics who read this will think I am insane with arrogance to write down such a statement.

– Yes.

Can you do anything to show people that it is not my teaching, but yours, that is written here?

– Yes. There are things written in this book that you could not have written unless they were told to you. Those who are capable of understanding them will understand that also.

You have told me about religions. There are also some individual teachers who have had great influence in these last years. Have any of them taught valuable truths?

– Some, yes.

One who has made many people conscious of mysticism is Lobsang Rampa. Is he truthful?

– No.

Yet I seem to recognise fragments of your truths scattered in his books.

– Yes. Like a porcelain cup that has been smashed and flung on a rubbish heap. The fragments are still recognisable as porcelain, but they are no longer useful.

Another teacher who has had immense influence is Carlos Castaneda who wrote about the Indian sorcerer Don Juan. Is he truthful?

– No.

Have his teachings any value, as fiction pointing a way to truth?

– No. Again he breaks the truth into useless fragments. Truths are only valuable if they form part of a true system of knowledge. Castaneda’s system is false, or it would be preferable to say that he has no system at all.

Then which teachers are valuable, among those who have written in recent years?

– Among those you will recognise, Teilhard de Chardin; Simone Weil; C.S. Lewis.

Lewis was not a Catholic, surely?

– In all but name, he was.

And among earlier teachers of mysticism?

– Teresa of Avila. Follow her and you will be guided truthfully.

You told me already that the way of Tao is a way to perfection?

– Yes.

Yet many Taoists practise the shallowest forms of magic, and believe in the grossest superstitions?

– Some of them do. So do some Catholics. Quite sensible Catholics pray for rain, or good weather, or a good harvest.

Should we never pray for such material things?

– No.

Yet Elijah prayed for rain? Or was it Elisha?

– Many prophets prayed for rain, but as a sign from God, not as a material benefit.

Yet Christ said “Ask in My name and you shall receive” or words to that effect?

– When you read the Gospels you must use your reason and understanding. To pray for material benefits is to use God like a bank in which you hope for an overdraft. You should pray only for spiritual benefits. For strength to accept and do God’s Will. For the strength to achieve Perfection.

But Christ taught us to pray for our daily bread. That is a material benefit?

– It is a limited one, limited to the day’s minimum needs. You take everything to the extreme.

What is the difference between praying for our daily bread, and for a good harvest?

– Because one is an immediate need, without which you would soon die. The other is a future benefit. And those praying for it with the greatest sincerity are those who hope to make money out of it, not those who simply hope for tomorrow’s bread as well as today’s.

Yet you have been describing a world to me in which it seems that the spiritual power of prayer could alter the weather, to continue with this example. And people do pray over plants, and make them grow better than plants that are merely watered and treated physically.

– To pray over plants would achieve nothing unless the prayer was informed by love of the plants themselves, a true desire for the welfare of the plants, not the benefit or gain of the person praying. This kind of loving prayer assists the spirit guardian of the plants. To pray over plants in any other way would be mere superstition, and valueless.

But just as there is a spirit guardian, may there not also be a spirit enemy? Whose aim is to undo the work of the spiritual guardian? May one not pray for the defeat of such an enemy?

– Yes. Although the enemy does not work in the crude, direct way you suggest. The Devil’s destruction’ is achieved in other ways.

What ways?

– One is through human beings devoted to evil. Someone gifted with psychic power, and motivated by hatred of life, might give himself to the Devil. In such a case he could act as a generator of destruction, and achieve physical results that neither he nor the Devil could achieve alone.

Yet the Devil causes physical results in human beings? In cases of possession?

– Yes. But these physical results are symptoms, not causes. To pray for the victim’s physical recovery would be meaningless. One must pray for his spiritual recovery first, and the other will follow.

Christ healed the physically sick and crippled, and promised his disciples that they would do even greater things.

– Did He pray for rain?

He blasted the fig tree.

– The things Christ did, and that His followers have done, were meant as signs and wonders to create and increase men’s spiritual faith. You began by talking about crops, and the weather. Nor did Christ blast the fig tree. He said it should never again bear fruit, and this was a physical parable, an allegory in which the fig tree stood for the Jews and Judaism. The fig tree had failed to give Him fruit, just as the Jews had failed to give Him welcome.

That has always seemed to me an unjust incident. It was not the season for figs.

– Exactly. It is never ‘the season’ for God’s coming. You must be ready, at all times. The Jews were not. God chose the innocent tree as a sign.

I thought Christ simply showed His human nature by ill-temper.

– No. If He had been an ill-tempered or hot-tempered man he had many greater occasions than that to display such a failing. Have I satisfied you?

Not really.

– That is because you do not understand that there is no dividing line between one thing and the next. Just as the colours of the spectrum blend one into the next, so the physical is not sharply divided from the psychic or the spiritual. There is no harsh dividing line between prayers for spiritual benefits and prayers for physical benefits. But a reasonable man will judge in which direction his prayers are tending.

You have told me that the Devil could cause apparently natural calamities such as plagues or storms, by working through a human being, or group of human beings, who possessed psychic force. Could prayer not counteract such an evil?

– If that was the cause, yes. But such cases are rare. Not many human beings possess the power or the will to give themselves over in such a way to the Devil.

And if the Devil, or evil spirits attack the guardian spirit of a place, and the attacks succeed, what results do they have? What happens to the place that has been guarded? Does it become neglected, or withered in some way?

– No. It may even become more luxuriant, and apparently attractive. The result is primarily in the spirit, not the place. But whereas previously the place had a benign atmosphere, if its guardian was benign, now it would have an atmosphere of evil, that a sensitive human being could recognise. Often a beautiful-seeming place may have an evil ‘feel’ about it, and a desert may seem welcoming and good.

And if the guardian spirit was looking after a species or group of animals or plants, for example?

– The same would be true here. The effect would be spiritual, rather than physical.

How would this express itself in animals or plants?

– As it would in a place, or a man. The energy, the life force concerned, would be on the side of evil rather than good, or would become more easily a prey to evil influences. That is where the struggle is, in the spiritual, not the physical world. This world which to you is everything is merely the shadow of the real world.

PROPHECY

The day before Christ’s Passion He foretold three things – His own death, Judas’s betrayal, and St. Peter’s denial. Were these prophecies of what must happen, leaving no free will to any of the three people concerned?

– No. Christ retained His free will, and the possibility of escape, up to the last moment. Christ told of His determination to fulfil His destiny. He did not foretell what must happen in spite of His own will. Nor did He foretell what Judas must do. He told only what He knew, that Judas had already betrayed Him. Even then, Judas could have drawn back from the final betrayal, and Christ’s destiny would have been fulfilled by other means. St. Peter’s denial depended on the two other acts, of betrayal and self-sacrifice, being completed. But once they were completed, then St. Peter would be driven by God’s Will to his act of denial. It was not his cowardice that acted, but God’s urging. His denial and remorse had a purpose in God’s plan, to burn into St. Peter’s soul the true nature of courage, the ability to decide instantly to do right, no matter what the danger.

THE CULT OF THE BODY

Is it right to be proud of our bodies, and develop them to their greatest beauty and strength?

– Yes. They were given to you by God. They are less important than your souls and minds, but they are still important. They should be cared for, within reason.

What is within reason?

– Anything that does not interfere with your spiritual progress.

Is nudism good? For men and women together?

– At the right time, and in the right place. If it becomes a worship of the body, this is wrong. If the object is health and recreation, it is good.

FASTING

Is fasting necessary for perfection?

– No. But it is a great help, if used wisely.

Long fasting is said to bring visions. Are these true visions of God and Paradise?

– Again, yes, if the preparation has been right.

What preparation is necessary?

– A right attitude of mind. The person fasting will need spiritual guidance, either from a human teacher, or by ‘hearing’ of the kind I have described to you.

My constant fear about such ‘hearing’ is that it is self-deception, rather than an evil instead of a good spirit. How can one be certain that the voice one hears is not simply a delusion?

– By the use of reason. By judging what you hear.

Often I cannot judge it. The things you tell me are utterly strange to me.

– If they are strange to you they are not likely to come from your conscious mind. If they tend to seem good or wise then believe them. If they seem bad, or unwise, ask again, until you are certain of what you hear, and of your understanding of it.

But could the voice not be my subconscious mind?

– Yes. In a human sense, it is your subconscious mind. It is your tone of voice, your vocabulary, your turn of phrase. But they are my thoughts, placed in your subconscious for you to hear. Fasting is among other things a means of learning to hear your subconscious. And your subconscious, as you called it, is a channel to your Real Mind, and therefore to me.

Are other forms of mortification, of self-discipline, desirable?

– All self-dicipline is desirable, if it is not carried to unwise extremes.

Always to go hungry, for example, even when one is not actually fasting?

– No. This is to insult God’s gift. What is proper is a wise restraint.

Some orders of monks and sisters are said always to keep their members on the edge of hunger, to reduce all temptations of the flesh. If that is true, is it no more than wise restraint?

– These orders have chosen this particular hardship, and doing with little sleep, as a path to God. They are exceptional, and not to be imitated by many, or by those not called to that path. I have told you yourself, the path of suffering is the shortest way to Perfection, but not many are able to follow it. To choose it and fail is worse than to have chosen another path from the beginning. For most people, moderation is best in all things.

Even in devotion?

– Devotion is not a ‘thing’, like fasting. It is an attitude of mind.

Are other forms of self-mortification legitimate, besides fasting, and going without much sleep? To wear very few and rough clothes in the cold? For a woman to do without all aids to physical attractiveness? For a man or a woman to eat unpleasant rather than pleasant food? To give up light reading or frivolous entertainments?

– All these things can be wise if the motive is wise. But again, the watchword for most people is ‘moderation’. For a woman to give up all aids to attractiveness is unnecessary, if her attractiveness is of a pure and good kind, and her intention is to seem pleasant to her companions and those who see her. That kind of human vanity is only sinful if carried to excess or used to promote lust.

This is the language of the Middle Ages.

– I have told you. The language is yours. Only the thought is mine. Translate it into any words you like. Let a woman make herself as pretty as she can, but not like a whore or a seductress. Do you prefer that?

I do, but many women will not. They dislike all limitations on their actions.

– You are sounding like a male chauvinist.

I don’t mean to.

Before I ask you again about women’s equality with men, may I ask one more question about self-mortification? Is physical violence to oneself ever permissible? The kind of self-flagellation monks used to practise, and some orders of sisters? Or the wearing of hairshirts, or chains under one’s clothes?

– No. They are not. God created your body. It belongs to Him, not to you. You may not kill it. Nor injure it, nor do anything to destroy its true health. It is as wrong to punish it in such ways as to become a glutton or a drunkard.

Then has the Church been wrong to encourage and sanctify such practices for most of its existence?

– Yes. Self-flagellation, squatting on poles, starvation, going without washing, any excessive mortification of the flesh, is a form of madness, and leads to madness. How can one become Perfect by destroying God’s work? It is wrong now, and always was wrong, and always will be. If some saints have used these methods, they have attained Perfection in spite of them, not because of them.

It’s hard to imagine a saint who wears business suits, sleeps eight hours a night, and is a moderate social drinker. Is that a false picture of moderation?

– It need not be. Perfection is in the mind, not the body. To do without alcohol is best, but to drink alcohol to a moderate and safe extent is not sinful. Nor to enjoy good food, nor warm and pleasant clothing, nor healthy amusements. There are many, many paths to God. It is not impossible to follow most of them in a business suit, and enjoying good dinners. It may take longer that way, but the end will be the same.

Yet you say that the shortest path to God is by suffering?

– Yes. But suffering of another kind. Not self-inflicted, sadistic injuries.

You mean illness gladly endured, or things of that kind?

– Yes. Or even stern discipline accepted for the love of God, and long endured, as in the case of those Orders or individuals who undertake to deprive themselves of certain comforts and ordinary pleasures in order to imitate Christ and glorify God. But there is a grave difference of kind between such joyfully endured hardships and excited self-torture. The one is of God, and the spirit. The other in reality is of the flesh and may be of the Devil.

THE EQUALITY OF WOMEN

Do you really believe in the equality of women?

– No. They are different from men, in their existence as human beings.

Do you approve for example, of women becoming athletes?

– Yes.

Then you do believe in the liberation of women?

– I believe in the liberation of everyone from unjust conditions. I do not approve of some of the methods women are now using.

What other methods exist?

– In countries where women possess the vote, that is all they need. In most such countries they form over 50% of the electorate.

Do you believe there is any innate inferiority in women, as compared to men, to carry out certain tasks?

– Only in tasks that require great physical strength.

But is there any serious inferiority, not of muscles but of mind?

– No.

Yet few women become mathematicians, or composers of music, or philosophers.

– Philosophy or mathematics are not prerequisites for enjoying justice and equality in society.

I know. But is that not an indication of the direction women’s minds take, away from general concepts, towards the particular and ephemeral?

– Because of childbearing and nursing, women need to care for the particular. Most philosophers would make bad mothers. A woman concerned with bearing and nursing children could not really concern herself with politics, or industry. A man concerned with earning a living could not reasonably hope to govern his community in a just fashion. I have said already, to talk of equality is nonsense. Are old men equal to young ones? Fat ones to thin ones? Clever ones to stupid ones? You do not ask a fat man to become thin, or a musician to become a philosopher, before you accord Him equal rights under the law. Women should have equal rights, as human beings, with all other human beings.

In a family should the father be the head always?

– No. But where he is the breadwinner it seems sensible that he should be the one to take certain decisions, as to where the family should live for example, and what they can afford to spend.

Even where the mother is more intelligent or more prudent than the father?

– If she is more intelligent and prudent than her husband she will know how to make sure that he takes the right decisions.

This still seems unequal, that she should need to use indirect methods.

– In any partnership there sometimes need to be indirect methods. Two equal partners cannot sensibly vote on an issue on which they disagree. Often the husband has to be indirect to get his wife to agree to something he knows to be wise. Beyond a certain point you cannot legislate for equality.

Do you believe that divorce is ever justified?

– No. I have told you so.

Even where a woman is bound in marriage to a drunken and brutal husband? Or where the husband has simply deserted her, leaving her effectively a widow? Are there any circumstances in which you would tolerate divorce, as opposed to annulment?

– None, if the marriage has been complete.

This seems total inequality. A man can abandon his wife and children, remarry in another place, or remain free of all responsibilities, while his wife is cut off from any hope of a new partnership with someone she could love, and who would help her to support her children.

– It is unjust. But the world is full of injustice. This prohibition helps to avoid the greater injustice of easy divorce, and unstable marriage.

You have told me not to be an extremist. Is your position here not extreme? To allow no exceptions? To tie a woman to a sadistic maniac, who terrorises her? Or to condemn her to perpetual loneliness?

– Nothing in this world is perpetual. And the injustice is no greater than that a woman, or a man, should spend their lives in serious illness and pain. Where these things happen, there is a purpose.

That is easier for a man to accept than for a woman. For every man who suffers from an intolerable marriage, there must be twice as many or ten times as many women?

– You may be right.

Then you are not really in favour of equality for women?

– Within the framework I have given you, yes.

It seems to me that the existence of the Virgin Mary should if anything give women a superior position in your eyes, rather than this very limited ‘equality’? Yet somehow the Virgin herself has been used as an excuse for enslaving women?

– Not by Her wish.

Yet it has happened.

– It will be in danger of happening in any society. So long as women bear children and feel bound to them by love, and so long as men are physically the stronger, this ‘enslavement’ you talk of is a danger.

But instead of lightening the result of these physical handicaps, you seem to wish to ensure that they weigh heavier than they need?

– You are misrepresenting what I say. Does easy divorce, as a general licence, ease women’s burdens? A woman’s physically attractive life is of a shorter duration than a man’s. A man will abandon an aging partner to marry a younger one. Children suffer from broken marriages. If a woman is enslaved by her first husband, it is quite possible that she will be enslaved by her second, since she may be unwise in her choice of partners. I grant you that there are many, many unhappy marriages which should never have taken place. But the alternative to lifelong marriage is worse than the wrong it would strive to correct. And I must return to my constant theme. This is not the whole or the greatest part of your real life. Misfortunes in this life, tragedies in this life, have purposes you will only understand fully in the next one.

This is not a doctrine people will accept today.

– I know. So much the worse for ‘today’. In ‘advanced’ countries more than half the marriages end in divorce. This must mean either that people in these countries enter on marriage far too lightly, or that they end them far too lightly. In other words they are not wisely considering the full meaning of marriage.

It could also mean that marriage is no longer a suitable institution for present conditions. I have heard a devout priest say that he thought so.

– How do you know he was devout?

He seemed so. And whether he was or not, is marriage still suitable? In the form we have known until now? Might living in communes be better, or the ‘extended family’ of several generations living together? Rather than husband and wife and children isolated from society by four walls and a front garden?

– Marriage can take many forms, all with advantages and disadvantages. The essential is a partnership for life between a man and a woman, made with the purpose of creating a family. I have told you before, this is an imitation of, a reflection of, God’s relationship with His Creation, of the Real Mind and the Real Self. It has a deep spiritual meaning, the deepest and most holy that exists. It can no more be broken at the will of one of the partners than God could break His covenant with Creation.

Then you could not approve of trial marriage?

– No.

Yet if a partner dies, the other may remarry?

– Of course. In the Real Mind marriage between two individuals does not exist, any more than distinctions between sexes exist. All the individuals belonging to the Real Mind are partners one with another in an even closer sense than that of the most perfect earthly marriage. If a man or a woman has married several times, the previous partners having died, and if each marriage has been good, then all the partners will belong to the same Real Mind, and they will recover one another with perfect joy. Such shadows as jealousy or a preference for one partner rather than another cannot have existence in the Real Mind, or have any meaning there.

Do all the members of the Real Mind belong to the same generation, or approximately so?

– No. I told you. They may belong to several generations. But it is likely that most of them will be approximately contemporaries. A wise individual will always find the right marriage partner, and even a choice of them among close contemporaries.

Yet some people, particularly plain women, or those who have needed to look after an invalid parent, seem condemned to singleness and loneliness?

– In the same way that some are condemned to them by illness. If they endure willingly they will have their reward.

Can a homosexual love, between two men, or between two women, be good?

– No.

Yet you say in the Real Mind there are no differences of sex? why should two men or two women not be truly loving partners?

– They can, in friendship. But not in a sexual relationship. I have told you, where there is no possibility of creating new life there can be no true lovemaking.

Are some individuals not born to be homosexuals, and incapable by nature of becoming heterosexual?

– No. They are made so by wrong upbringing.

Most psychologists would disagree with you.

– Most psychologists disagree with each other, about that and many serious questions.

Nevertheless many humane and intelligent people believe that some homosexuals are born and not made.

– There are exceptions, but very few compared to the vast number who practise homosexuality.

In your first answer you seemed to say that true, innate homosexuality does not exist. Now you seem to be qualifying that answer. Have you changed your mind about it?

– No. No one is born to practise physical homosexual love. Very few are born with such a nature that they will as adults experience a desire for it, no matter what their upbringing. But very many are brought up so wrongly that they become incapable of heterosexual love.

Some individuals are even transsexual, or hermaphrodite. Is it legitimate for them to have their apparent sex altered to the one of their inclinations?

– That depends. There are infinitesimally few cases where such actions could be truly justified. But neither these, nor the few exceptions to the rule that homosexuals are made, not born, make homosexual lovemaking good or even tolerable. For those who are denied a satisfactory sexual life because of such handicaps, it is a cross to be born with loving resignation to God’s Will. Sexual love is not a right, but a privilege, and in a sense a vocation, which all human beings will not possess. There are other vocations, as great, or greater. Jesus and His Mother give examples of such other vocations.

It has been suggested that Jesus felt emotionally and physically drawn to His beloved disciple, John. Many homosexuals must take great comfort from such a belief.

– If they imitate the purity of that friendship, they are right to take comfort from it. But nothing in Jesus’ love for St. John was of the nature of homosexual love. No homosexual could justly claim to base his lovemaking on the example of that friendship.

In heterosexual love, are all kinds of lovemaking legitimate?

– If you mean all kinds of what are commonly called perversions, no. The act of love, as I have told you many times, is an imitation of God’s loving act of creation. It is a holy and sacred act, of great spiritual power as well as physical pleasure. It cannot be regarded solely from a physical aspect.

A puritan might say that the act should be as brief and as joyless as possible. Would he or she be right?

– No. Such a view is infinitely wrong. It should be an act of great joy and delight. All that can give it such pure joy is legitimate and good. All caresses, all tenderness that can add to the partner’s joy are good. But perversions, sadistic, or masochistic, or unnatural, destroy the sacredness of the act and make it vile, and may make it evil.

You say ‘unnatural’; but who is to agree on what is natural? A woman strictly brought up might consider it unnatural to let her husband see her naked. A man or woman of another upbringing might consider something good and natural that you would consider perverse. How is one to judge?

– By reason. If the intention is good, the act is likely to be the same.

In all this conversation, like all our conversations about morality, I have no hope of persuading anyone to listen to what you are telling me. The whole world is turning away from such doctrines. The most humane and kindly societies have rejected them as cruel and injurious.

– Have they succeeded in making men happier?

As far as a human being can judge such a question, I should say yes. I imagine that modern Sweden is fifty times happier than Geneva in the time of Calvin, or mediaeval Paris. I have to say it. I find your doctrines frightening and in human.

– That is because they are inhuman. Judged by human measurement, what you say is correct. And I hold no brief for Calvin, or the Middle Ages. But the true measurement is not human. The true life and the true happiness are not here. They are in the world of the spirit. You must learn to judge not by man’s standards but by God’s.

ON JUDGING OTHERS

Should one judge others?

– No.

It seems impossible not to. One forms judgments almost automatically, and often before one can prevent oneself.

– You should try not to.

Even in cases where the other person seems clearly to be doing wrong, and to be persisting in it? May one not form an opinion that so-and-so is lazy, or dishonest, or greedy, or mean?

– One may form an opinion as to facts. But this is different from judging. To judge means to condemn; to decide that you know and have weighed all the circumstances and excuses, and found the person guilty.

But in ordinary speech to form an opinion is to judge; to say for example that so-and-so is mean and dishonest, and that therefore you will not lend them money. Is that wrong? May one not protect oneself in that way?

– Yes of course you may, and should. You should be prudent in all relationships. But that is not judging in the true sense. One should try to understand why the person concerned is mean and dishonest, and love them in spite of it, as you know God loves you in spite of all your faults. God knows your faults, but He does not judge you for them until all hope of repentance is ended. Even then, it would be you who judged yourself, not God. When men judge, as you speak of judging, they see only the faults. But just as there is no one without faults, so there is no one without virtues. Look at the virtues and love them.

CENSORSHIP

Do you believe that authority should censor the books or entertainment available to people?

– Yes.

Yet it has often been claimed that censorship creates a prurient interest in what is forbidden, and that the abolition of censorship either lessens or even destroys that interest.

– Experience shows the opposite. That the removal of censorship increases the appetite for immoral entertainment, and creates a competition among pornographers to be more and more shocking.

But does this competition not defeat itself, and create boredom?

– Perhaps it does, but at the same time it makes people become used to vileness, and to accept it as normal. It destroys all idea of moral standards.

It is also claimed that pornography is a safety valve, and that those who can read about perverted sex will not need or wish to practise it. That it is repression and censorship that create sexual criminals. Is this true?

– No. Those who grow bored with reading may want to act. For every individual who remains contented with a book, another will be stimulated to do what he has seen described. But the argument does not really turn on these points. The effect of unlimited pornography is to debase the whole of society, from top to bottom. People cease to believe that such a concept as morality exists, or has any importance. The sexual criminal ceases to be regarded as such. Perversion becomes normality.

Allowing all that to be true, should morality only and always concern itself with sex? Should censorship not also be applied to violence and to cruelty?

– Yes, it should. The purpose of art is to reflect God. All that reflects evil of any kind, and praises it, or glorifies it, or makes it seem desirable, should be condemned.

But in modern society there is very limited agreement as to what is evil and what is good. Is there a danger that a narrow authority would condemn works of art or literature that were really good, merely because the authority failed to understand them, or disliked them for reasons unconnected with art, or with God?

– There is that danger, yes. But the fear that some authorities may misuse the power of censorship does not mean that censorship itself is wrong. Censorship is the forming of a judgment on what is good, and what is evil; what is harmful, and what is not harmful. Every individual should strive to do this for himself. Every authority given responsibility for the welfare of a community should do the same.

But individuals and authorities may be wrong. Should they have the power to dictate to others in matters of opinion and taste?

– Within limits, yes. You trust authority to dictate standards of safety and hygiene in physical matters. You should trust it to do the same in spiritual matters, choosing the right people to set these standards.

Would these right people be priests?

– They can be anyone the community trust. Legislators, judges, priests, laymen. What is essential is that there should be moral standards and that someone should be appointed to see that these standards are preserved.

ON AVOIDING PEOPLE

Is it right to avoid people who irritate us, or whom we find unsympathetic?

– No. You do not wish God to avoid you.

Are we to behave always to others as we wish God to behave towards us?

– Within the limits of your humanity, yes.

Even where someone tries to exploit us, or actively tries to harm us under the pretence of friendship? May we not protect ourselves by avoiding them, or by telling them that we see through their pretence?

– No.

Must we allow ourselves then to be exploited, or harmed?

– No. You must protect yourself in other ways that do not harm them.

This is often difficult, and sometimes it seems impossible.

– There is a virtue in behaving as I suggest. By avoiding such people you may drive them to worse company or towards real wrongdoing. Your friendships and relationships are given to you not only for your pleasure and benefit, but for the benefit of others. They are to be used in God’s service.

Are we to avoid any company, any acquaintances?

– Only evil company, even if it is attractive. The evil are often more attractive than the good.

Should we not hope to convert the evil?

– If you possess the spiritual strength, and are sure of your motives, yes. If you feel endangered, no.

PRAYER

Is prayer alone a way to Perfection?

– No. Unless the individual is physically incapable of working he or she should add work to prayer. Even a Sister who devotes her life to prayer in an enclosed Order, should keep a garden, or do some work in the convent in accordance with her strength. She should paint, or write, or embroider, or teach skills to the novices. But the best recreation after long prayer is to keep a garden.

DIET

Is the reason for the Orthodox Jewish diet purely physical and scientific; or is it the result of accidental decisions that have no basis in necessity; or is there a spiritual reason for its details?

– All three answers are correct. For nomads in a hot climate pork is unhealthy and blood makes meat decay more quickly than meat from which the blood has been drawn. The rules regarding animals with or without cloven hooves that chew the cud, or do not chew it; and regarding fish with or without scales; these are based on primitive scientific ideas that have no basis in fact. The prohibition against leavened bread during Passover is an accident of Jewish history. But all these rules have a spiritual foundation in that they reminded Jews of God’s mastery of His Creation and of the nature of His gifts to man. The prohibition against leaven, or yeast, has also a particular spiritual meaning, as I have told you.

Did the other prohibitions have the same kind of spiritual value? Did they give, do they give, greater spiritual sensitivity to those who obey them?

– No. For spiritual sensitivity you need a quite different diet, as I have also told you.

Even so, should Christians obey these rules, out of reverence for the Bible?

– No. Christ abolished the Old law to which they belonged. They have ceased to have any meaning.

And fasting, and abstinence? These have been almost done away with in the modern Church. Is this good?

– Neither good nor bad. Often those who followed the old rules most strictly were those who could least afford to; labourers, and poor women, whose diet was already insufficient. What is always best in diet is a continuing moderate restraint.

But was it not good to do without meat on a Friday?

– Originally this was not intended as a sacrifice, but as an aid to luxury. And it was not Christian but pagan. The pagans ate fish on Fridays, being the day sacred to Aphrodite, the Goddess of love, and fish being considered sacred to her, and aphrodisiac. The Christians adopted the custom, or continued it from their days as pagans, making it an agape, or love feast. Only later, and in northern Europe, it came to have the significance of a mild hardship and sacrifice.

At some periods the Church has forbidden horse meat as a food. Is this for the same kind of reason, that pagans ate it as a feast?

– Yes. None of these rules have any present value or significance. For those who wish for an ordinary diet, restraint from greed is enough, as I have said. For those who wish to follow a spiritual path, other diets are necessary. They can learn these when the time comes.

Are any of these spiritual diets written down, or well known? Can they be found in books?

– No. Each individual will learn the right diet for himself or herself when the time comes.

Are they hard to follow?

– No. If the desire to follow them is there they are comparatively easy. But for some people all restraint is difficult. Restraint in diet is not essential to true goodness.

CRIME AND PUNISHMENT

Do you approve of severe punishments for crime?

– No. I do not approve of any punishments. Only of taking wise measures to educate the criminal and bring him to a right state of mind.

Are some individuals born criminals by nature, or by the chemistry of their minds?

– All men are born criminals by nature. That is the meaning of the Fall.

But it seems that some are born with a chemical disorder of the brain that leads them to crimes of violence. They are pathological cases from birth. Is this true?

– Yes. They should be cured, not punished.

Would it be permissible to oblige them to be cured, even before they had committed a crime?

– Yes. Exactly as it is legitimate to cure any illness, and to oblige someone to be cured whose illness can affect others. But this must be done with the greatest respect for the individual’s rights. It is not an easy matter.

The curing or re-education of criminals could still involve severity, either of restraint, or sanctions of diet, or strict discipline. Do you approve of severity in this sense, as against the gentle and humane understanding called for by many liberal criminologists?

– Where gentleness can succeed I prefer it to all other measures.

And where it cannot succeed?

– It is likely that in those cases it has not been properly tried.

Surely there are some cases where gentleness is not enough? Where for whatever reason the criminal has gone beyond the reach of gentleness, and regards it only as a laughable weakness in society, which he will exploit to his own advantage?

– There are such cases, and society must defend itself, while remaining wise and humane in doing so. But such criminals are the result of society’s own neglect of its duty towards its members. Most crimes are the result of society’s own injustice. This is of no consolation to the particular victim of a crime, but it should weigh with those who dispense justice. To treat crime by ill-treating criminals is like trying to cure smallpox by scratching the pockmarks. If society could become just, most crime would disappear.

THE WAY TO PERFECTION

Are there many ways to Perfection?

– Yes. All are long and hard. Some are shortened by suffering joyfully endured for God’s sake. But all require sacrifice.

Could we all become perfect in this life?

– That is the ideal.

But is it possible? Some of us need to do things that involve imperfection. We must be in business, or serve imperfect employers who require imperfection of us if we are to earn a living from them. We must follow the ways of the world or else starve, or be ruined.

– That is one of the sacrifices I spoke of just now.

But it is often a sacrifice that involves others, a wife or children. We must do wrong in order to feed them, or see them suffer because we ourselves have wished to be perfect. Is that kind of perfection not itself imperfect, being selfish?

– No. If enough people strove for perfection, and here you mean simple honesty rather than perfection such choices would not arise. The dishonest employer would be shamed, and obliged to become honest for lack of dishonest employees. But it requires someone to begin being honest. If the family must suffer for the father’s or the mother’s honesty then it should gladly embrace this suffering and be proud of its cause. But none of this is to suggest that an employee should seek out occasions for correcting his employer. There are many prudent ways of avoiding such a challenge.

Yet perhaps by being ‘prudent’ one might allow a bad practice to grow worse, until when the challenge does come it is far more serious than it would have been much earlier?

– Then this would have been false prudence. But in general a wise employee minds his own affairs and his own conscience, and not his employer’s, nor his fellow workers’. If his conduct is clearly and strongly that of an honest man, if he acts and speaks wisely and honestly on all proper occasions, then it is not likely he will be asked to do something against his conscience. If he is, then come what may he must refuse. It is never an excuse to say ‘my wife would suffer if I refused, therefore it is better to do wrong.’ It is never better to do wrong.

May a man or woman seeking perfection join a trade union?

– Of course.

Yet if they think the union is acting wrongly, they would have to be disloyal to their fellows?

– Yes. No loyalty overrides that due to God. But again, to belong to a trade union requires more than paying dues and going on strike. The man seeking perfection will play an active role in his union, as the Communists do. If he can persuade only a few others, he will find himself with great influence and can do great good.

In avoiding strikes?

– Not at all. Many strikes are justified. If an industry or firm suffers many strikes it is often the employers’ fault. If an army fails in battle it is usually the fault of the generals, not the soldiers.

Could a man seeking perfection be a Communist?

– No. As a true Communist he would not believe in God or the world of spirituality. As a false Communist he would be worthless.

Can a Communist nevertheless be a good man?

– Of course. Many Communists are better men and women than many Christians.

Can an employer hope for perfection?

– Why not? But he must always choose right rather than wrong, no matter what the business consequences may be. It will be hard for him. As it is for all men and women in authority. That is part of their suffering.

Must a man or a woman pay an unjust tax?

– Yes. Most taxes seem unjust to the payer. But even where a tax is truly inequitable, it must be paid. The payer may strive to have the tax abolished or altered, and he may strive to lighten the burden by legitimate means. But he may not tell lies, or falsify or neglect his accounts. He must regard his government as existing by God’s Will and must bear the burdens it lays on him with a joyful heart.

Who could follow this teaching?

– All those who seek to be perfect.

Reading St. Paul, it seems as if faith alone is the way to Perfection, and that actions mean nothing. Is this true?

– No. Actions reveal faith, as you will read elsewhere in the New Testament.

Are we to regard every word in the New Testament as inspired by God?

– No. Even in the Gospels there are errors of transmission, as I have told you. It needs great wisdom to interpret the Scriptures rightly. To become perfect one must submit to a spiritual guide, again as I have told you; either human or a guiding spirit. And here too great judgement is needed, to ensure that the guide is a true one.

If one cannot find a guide, are there any other ways of learning Perfection?

– No. One will always find a guide when the time is right.

Is the way to Perfection always filled with sadness?

– Never. The way is filled with joy that grows in intensity as the seeker comes nearer to the realisation of God. No hardships matter. No worldly concerns matter in the least as the seeker begins to know that perfect joy of true life, and true happiness in the Love of God. There lies the real meaning of ecstasy, that lasts not for a moment, but for ever. In Perfection the living soul is joined to the Holy Spirit and reunited with it. The living mind is reunited with God. It shares in all that God is, knows all that God knows and does, becomes a part of God. This is Perfection, to become one with God. This is the true teaching of Buddhism, this is the true teaching of the Gospels, that man must become one with God, and must be absorbed in God, all thought of Self burned away by love of God.

What role do Saints have in the Real Mind to which they belong as individuals?

– They inform it with the Holy Spirit. They are broad channels between the Real Mind and the glory of God. Their sanctity makes up for many failings of individuals and makes the progress; of the Real Mind towards Perfection much swifter and easier for its other members. Blessed is the Real Mind that possesses a Saint within its membership. Just as a human family or community may benefit from the great worldly success of one of its members, so the spiritual community of the Real Mind benefits from the spiritual greatness of the Saint.

But does not the soul of the Saint fly directly to God?

– In one sense, yes. It has achieved reunion with God. But also it belongs to the Real Mind and remains there, a channel of Grace between God and Real Mind, between Real Mind and the world. As a light may shine in all directions at once, so the light of Grace reflected by a Saint shines both towards God, its origin, and towards the world of the spirit, and the world of the body.

GOD

You have told me that all that is, is God. That God is the substance and reality of all life, and of all matter. Is this literally true?

– No. For matter has no reality. All that is real is God. All that is spirit, is ultimately God’s spirit. The world of matter is no more than the distorted shadow of this spirit. But God is in all things, He knows all things from the least to the greatest, and by knowing them He creates them, and is their essence. No insect, no living cell, lives or dies, but God is there, and knows. No thought crosses your mind, but God is aware of it, and has known from the beginning that you would think it. That you would write this word. That that bird would fly there, just as it has done. He is in the bird’s song. In the movement of every leaf as the wind blows. God is all.

Is there no escape from God?

– None. There is no darkness that is not light to Him.

You have told me of the coldness of God’s Being, a cold so great it is continual suffering. Why is this?

– He suffers for mankind, for His Creation. In Himself He burns with fire, like the heart of a great star, greater than any conceivable star. But in His Creation He foregoes all burning, all warmth for Himself, for fear of burning imperfection. What is imperfect could not withstand for an instant the Burning Love and Fierce Light of God. Therefore He must be cold and dark, and suffer coldness and darkness.

Is God filled with sadness?

– Yes. And at the same time with Eternal Joy. God can weep and laugh at the same time. And in infinitely many ways. He is full of laughter. God’s joy is great as He sees His Creation struggle back towards Perfection.

May a man laugh with God?

– There is nothing God loves better than for a man to laugh with Him, full of joy.

GOD’S MERCY

According to the Gospels one should take no thought for the morrow, because God will provide, as He provides for the birds of the air, and the flowers of the fields. Yet the birds die in winter, and the flowers wither in sudden frosts. Men die of hunger. In what sense does God provide?

– In a spiritual sense. It is the world of the spirit that is important. For every suffering God provides spiritual strength to bear it and profit from it, so that one may attain Perfection by its means.

This is easy to say and hear when one is not suffering.

– When one is not suffering one must gather the strength and the self discipline for when trials come, just as in peacetime the soldier must exercise himself for war. God’s mercy is not to spare you from suffering, but to give you the strength to bear it. Yet you must develop that strength, and learn to use it.

But what do the words mean, ‘to take no thought for tomorrow’? Should we understand them literally, and never save money for the future, or seek to provide for future needs by foregoing pleasures today?

– The words mean what they say, but they do not really refer to bread and meat and money for your old age. They refer to future troubles. In both senses you should provide wisely, by using God’s gifts wisely. Beyond that you should not spoil today by excessive care for tomorrow, in the material or the spiritual sense. If God gives you joy today, accept it, without saying, “Perhaps I must weep tomorrow.” Leave tomorrow’s tears until tomorrow. As the Gospels tell you, ‘Sufficient unto the day are the troubles thereof.’

CHARITY

In a Welfare State, where the authorities look after the unfortunate, is private charity still a virtue?

– Yes.

Should one give to those who ask, or should one make sure that they are really in need?

– Within reason one should make sure that they are really in need.

But beggars in the street; should one give to them? Is it a virtue whether they are genuine or not?

– One should give a small sum in case they are in need. It is better to be cheated ten times than to refuse a hungry man once, who needs the price of food.

Many would say this is to encourage cheating and unnecessary begging. That if one really wishes to help such people one should bring them to the proper authority, who would help them constructively.

– If you have the time and the will to do that, it would be a good action. Giving includes other things than money. But most beggars would prefer money.

Is the mere act of giving a virtue, or is it only a virtue if the case is genuine?

– The act alone is a virtue if it is accompanied by love. To give with disgust or to salve one’s conscience is not a virtue. One must love the beggar as a fellow human being.

Should one give more than one feels one can afford?

– No. I have said, give a small sum.

But in cases that seem truly serious, where a large sum would help someone in a substantial way, should one give it even if it means a sacrifice for one’s own family?

– One must judge the sacrifice against the benefit. If it was a sacrifice of one’s own pleasure, and the case was serious, one should give. But such a matter would have to be judged in all its details.

Christ said that we should sell all that we have and give to the poor. Is this still an ideal we should strive to attain?

– Christ said that to one rich man who loved money. It was not a general principle.

And the first Christians, who lived in common. Is that still an ideal for us?

– No. It is a possible way of life for those who desire it.

Thinking of charity, not to beggars or individuals in a crisis of need who appeal to us, but in cases where terrible events have happened, in distant countries; floods or earthquakes or famines; should we give to appeals for help in such cases?

– No.

You say No! But this involves the greatest charities in the world! Have I understood you?

– The answer is still no.

Will you explain?

– Very little of such long distance charity is effective. And the little that is, serves only to relieve the local wealthy people from giving to their own poor and unfortunate neighbours. If you have money or goods or energy to give to charity you will find serious needs on your own doorstep, even in a Welfare State. To give to a romantic, distant appeal, where you have no way of knowing what happens to your gift, is not real charity, particularly if there is poverty nearer at home.

But this is to destroy the whole concept of ‘one world’ and the rich countries helping the poor countries.

– I have told you, this kind of charity does not help. It does not reach those in real need.

The welfare workers claim that it does.

– A fraction may do so in some cases. But compared to the total effort, and considering all the side effects, the results are pitiful or negative. In many cases the reality is of poor people in a developed country giving money to rich people in an undeveloped one. Charity must be allied to wisdom.

Every great charitable organisation in the world that heard of such an answer would be furious.

– That does not alter the truth of the answer. Most such giving is a way of laying one’s conscience to rest regarding nearer poverty.

But if one hears an appeal from a distant community, should one turn a deaf ear?

– No. Where a community asks for help, the help given should be by other communities, and the givers should ensure that that help reaches those in need. If the community that asks for help refuses to allow the givers to supervise how the help is given, then all help should be withheld. If a beggar asks you for money to feed his starving children, you would be wise to ask to see the children and to make sure that they received food bought with your gift. The same is true of gifts on a community and government level.

But governments in such cases are jealous of their independence, or dignity, or they say that only they have the means and knowledge to distribute the gifts effectively.

– If they refuse to be supervised, or advised; or if they refuse to take the advice given, they should be left to their own resources.

In a disaster such as an earthquake or a famine, the welfare workers from foreign countries usually have far greater experience than the local officials.

– They should be given reasonable authority to use that experience for the benefit of the victims. Too often this is not allowed.

All this could be taken as an excuse to give nothing to any good cause, for fear the gift would be misused?

– No. In real charity there is an obligation on the giver to make sure that his gift is not only needed but is properly used. Between two appeals, would you answer the one where your gift would almost certainly be wasted, or the one where you knew it would bring relief and happiness? Nothing I have said relieves you from the duty of giving. I am adding to it the requirement that the giving should be wise.

LOVE

Should we love God to the exclusion of all earthly love?

– No. Love cannot be divided. It shines in all directions like the light of the sun.

But many devout people say that to love the things of this world is to turn away from God.

– Love of things is not love. It is greed, or avarice, or lust, or distorted love. One may love God in things, but not the things themselves. In a statue one loves the beauty, not the mere mass of stone or metal. In loving the beauty one is loving God.

The same people also suggest that one should not love others; that even friendship for another human being injures one’s pure love of God. I am speaking here of strict religious orders, which frown on close friendships, or the love of any creature or the fondness for any object.

– Here again there must be wisdom. Christ had close friendships, which He still preserves. He loved His disciples, and the women who accompanied Him. But these were pure loves that took nothing from His love for the Father. There is a danger in all secondary loves that they may become primary. One must love God first of all. But love is infinite. The more one loves, the greater the love one has to give. The more one loves God, the deeper and richer the love one has to give to one’s friends, and to one’s family, and to all those in need of love.

THE CREATION

The first Creation had its whole Being in Love alone. There was neither light nor dark, nor anything but God’s love and the love of God.

The second Creation had its Being in both Light and Love, and the angels who had remained obedient to God’s Will shared in the Light, and became Beings of light as well as of Love, while those angels who had rebelled with Satan had their Being in Darkness and in Hatred and longed to bring that Darkness and that Hatred into the second Creation. This is the war between Good and Evil, between light and dark, between love and hatred. Adam’s disobedience gave entry for darkness and hatred into the new Creation. All that had been perfect became fouled with darkness, and with hatred, with imperfection and corruption. Death entered the Universe.

Adam’s sin was like the removal of one stone in a dyke that keeps out the sea from the dry land. Through the smallest opening the sea will enter, and make itself a great breach, until all the land is ruined. Yet no man can conceive of the greatness of Adam and Eve, and therefore of the greatness of their sin. They were not two children in a garden, but contained within themselves all mankind. Not only the mankind we know, but every creature in every world that has man’s nature. And their garden was the Universe, the stars of heaven, and all that lives, every plant, every living creature that God’s mind conceived, and His Love created, all in a state of spiritual perfection, made of light and giving light and living in the light.

All this was in Adam’s charge and in Eve’s, while the angels of the first Creation fought against Satan and his followers, who had become legion upon legion of devils, vowed to God’s destruction.

Adam’s sin was to choose Satan’s promise rather than trust in God. Now all is to remade, and imperfection to be made perfect once again. But when this perfection is achieved, there must be a Third Creation, whose element is fire. As the first Creation had its spiritual centre in Lucifer, and the second in Adam, so the Third Creation, with its nature and existence all of fire, must have its spiritual centre in a Being created of fire. As the angel’s element was love, and Adam’s light, so this third Being’s element must be fire. This Being too must fall, because the fall of Lucifer, and of Adam, and of the third Being and this Third Creation, are already and from the Beginning in God’s perfect plan. As gold is tried by fire and the dross burned away, so God tries His plans by love and light and fire, so that their opposites, their shadow images, may be burned away by trial.

In this last trial, man made perfect has his share, to repair his fault in Adam, his share in Adam’s disobedience. The angels and man must fight Satan and his legions for a last battle between Good and Evil. All this has been foreshadowed in many legends of the destruction of the gods and the reign of ice and darkness. But love and light and fire will prevail. They have already prevailed, for nothing can be that has not been from the Beginning. All is present in God’s mind.

When God created Satan and the angels, the angels knew God’s love and light and fire. But they did not possess them. Satan coveted the light that is the self of God, and attempted to master it. Then in the struggle the light was hurled through Heaven, and broken apart, and the stars were born, and the galaxies, and all the lights of the Heavens that we know. But we do not know a millionth part of their glory, nor a millionth part of that millionth part. And within this universe man was born as Adam and as Eve. And Eve and Adam coveted the fire, that is the knowledge of God, and tempted by Satan they sought to control it. Out of this the Universe of fire is born. Within the Universe of fire, the new Adam is born, and he will attempt to steal God’s love.

THE TRINITY

God is fire and light and love. The love is the glory of the light and the burning of the fire. The fire is the burning of love, and the light is the brightness of the fire. The three are one and cannot be separated one from the other. The fire is both light and heat. The light comes from the fire and the warmth and blaze of the fire are part of it. The warmth of the fire is inseparable from the light of it, and the burning of it. This is the Trinity. This is the mystery of the Trinity, of the Three in One and One in Three.

The fire is the mind of God.

The light is the self of God.

The warmth is the love of God.

The mind and fire are God the Father.

The light and self are God the Son.

The warmth and love are God the Holy Spirit.

The Son is Jesus Christ.

The Holy Spirit is Mary the Virgin, the Mother of God.

PRAYER

Burn my heart, my Lord,

Burn my soul.

Burn away my corruption.

Burn away from me all that is not your fire.

PRAYER

When you pray, listen.

THE BODY AND THE SOUL

When you stand in the light of the sun you cast a shadow. Only when the sun is overhead the shadow almost disappears. When the sun is lowest in the sky, the shadow is longest, it stretches to the horizon.

This shadow is our body. The self that belongs to darkness, and nothingness. It is the shadow created by the Fall. It goes with us everywhere except in the darkness, where all is shadow. Only in the heart of the sun can the shadow be burned away.

I dreamed of two brothers, two princes. One ruled the other and imprisoned him, to steal his wealth. He tried to drive his brother to suicide by ill-treatment, and terror. Yet the imprisoned brother loved him, and even when the chance came to kill his brother and gain his freedom by murder, he would not. He told his brother that he loved him, that he was not wicked in reality, but only driven by his debts and his unhappiness. And how the dark prince sneered at this simplicity!

– These are the body and soul of a man. The soul and the flesh, which is the shadow of the soul.

SPEAKING WITH TONGUES

The Apostles were granted the gift of speaking foreign languages, by the Holy Spirit. Later, St. Paul writes of the gift of tongues, but says that no man can understand what is said in these tongues unless they are interpreted. Was this the same gift the Apostles received?

– No. The second so called gift was hysteria. It is still common, and valueless, or even harmful.

Was the Apostles’ gift never repeated?

– No. A man may learn a foreign language when he needs to. God rarely gives gifts that a man can earn by his own efforts. The gift to the Apostles was given once only, so that simple men might spread the message of the Resurrection very quickly, to many people. Now there are other ways.

Some people even today appear to be able to speak foreign languages, even learned, dead languages, when they are asleep or in a trance. Is this a psychic power?

– No. It is a kind of possession. Just as other people in a trance appear to remember previous lives. In reality they are possessed by emanations of the dead.

Not by the dead themselves?

– No. By an energy left behind by the dead.

And those who speak in Hebrew or in Greek, and give lectures, or dictate books that they themselves could not read or understand in their waking lives?

– It is the same. The dead who have left tasks uncompleted try to complete them in this way.

It is not a possession by evil spirits?

– No. Neither good nor evil. It is by an energy left behind, like a store of electricity.

Is automatic writing the same type of phenomenon?

– Yes.

But a store of electricity has no purpose or intention. Does the soul or mind of the dead person guide the use of this stored energy, or latent energy?

– Yes.

So that it is a kind of possession?

– A harmless one. When you say ‘possession’ or ‘possessed’, you mean it in a harmful, dangerous sense. This is quite innocent.

Are these uncompleted tasks something that the Real Mind of the dead man or woman also wishes completed?

– No. They are usually a harmless vanity. It can concern not only writing and speaking, but music or painting. Many paintings are done under such circumstances. They are not often good ones.

As though a dead painter, or writer, or musician, wished to continue his earthly career?

– Yes.

Why does the Real Mind allow this? Are there not other more important things the dead person should be doing?

– Yes. But even spirits can waste their time.

Are there ever cases where something valuable is written in this way?

– Yes. Occasionally. St. John’s Gospel was written in this way.

Not the other Gospels?

– No. And St. John’s has been rewritten to bring it closer to the earlier Gospels, although these contain many errors of fact.

And of doctrine?

– No. Only of fact. But St. John’s Gospel remains closest to God’s desire.

Was St. John’s Gospel dictated in its original form by God Himself?

– By His Son. He wished to correct the errors of the other Gospels.

The Church teaches that all the Gospels were dictated by God and cannot contain error.

– Errors of doctrine, no. But they obviously contain errors of fact because they disagree one with another. This is quite different from automatic writing, or the kind of innocent possession we were talking about.

Are there any books of value written by that kind of possession?

– Yes. Dante’s ‘Inferno and Paradiso’. It was not merely a figure of poetry when Dante claimed that Virgil instructed him. But here, Virgil was sent to him by the greater mind to which they both belong. It was by God’s Will.

Is Dante’s ‘Inferno and Paradiso’ therefore to be regarded as like the Gospels?

– Yes.

Yet you have told me there is no Inferno, no Hell, as the Church has described it, and as Dante describes it.

– Both the Church and Dante describe in poetic imagery the pains of nothingness and of approaching nothingness; of turning away from God, and the loss of love. The sins Dante and the Church describe bring these punishments on the sinner, by the sinner’s own doing, not by God’s Will. The sinner closes himself away from light, and love and the warmth of God’s fire. Dante correctly describes the lowest circle of Hell, of Nothingness as frozen, as the coldest circle.

Yet theologians have discovered heresy in Dante’s poetry.

– They are wrong. The heresy they imagine they have discovered contains truth.

These conversations that I am writing down – am I to claim that they are of the same origin as Dante’s poetry?

– No. They are not ‘poetry’. Nor has Virgil or any poet been sent to you.

LATIN MASS AND VATICAN COUNCIL II

Do you prefer the Latin Mass to the Vernacular Mass of today?

– Yes. The Vernacular Mass threatens to destroy the Church. To dissolve it perhaps, rather than destroy it. The Latin Mass bound it together.

Yet the Church has changed language and liturgy before – from Greek to Latin. And its liturgy at the Council of Trent. Was the Vatican Council wrong to make new changes?

– Yes. Not all changes are for the better.

Yet Pope John who convened the Council is held to be a Saint. Was he not right in this?

– Saints are not infallible in worldly decisions. And he merely convened the Council. He did not live to approve of what it did.

Would he have approved if he had lived?

– No. No wise man could approve.

The Pope has approved. Or spoken approvingly? [This was written during the reign of Paul VI.]

– He has accepted a fait accompli. He has not approved of it.

Are you condemning everything the Council did? All the modernisation?

– Yes. It was pandering to fashion, not to need.

But is all this the fault of the Council, and the new atmosphere?

– I am not saying all change is wrong and to be forbidden. Only that change is not good simply because it is change. And that these changes were definitely wrong.

Do you condemn nuns, for example, for wearing slightly more modern clothes? Priests for leaving off their Roman collars? Churches for bringing modern music into the Mass?

– These things are neither good nor bad in themselves. It is the atmosphere they have created, in which everything is questioned and doubted.

But should we not question and doubt? Do you want blind faith?

– Yes. You cannot reason your way, or doubt your way to Salvation. No man reached God by asking questions.

Again you seem to be going back to the Middle Ages. Modern men will not accept such teaching. They have learned to challenge all authority, and if authority cannot justify itself they will not obey it.

– Are you speaking of Communist Russia? Communist China?

No. Of the West.

– And the West is retreating before the Communist powers.

Are you saying that only blind faith in the Church can answer blind faith in Communism?

– Yes.

Yet you yourself have told me that the Church has fallen into many errors. You yourself have described some of them. Do you wish us to have blind faith even in errors?

– No. But in questioning authority you must listen to the answers. Modern man not only insists on asking the questions, he also insists on providing his own answers. And the Church has surrendered to this. I wish the Church and Its people to return to a time when anyone might question, but when he received the answer he accepted it. It is this refusal to accept the Church’s answers on matters of essential doctrine that is destructive, not the length of a nun’s skirts, or the shape of a priest’s collar. But these small relaxations of discipline began an avalanche that may carry away the entire building.

PURGATORY

Does Purgatory exist?

– No.

Then what happens when we die? Is there a Judgement at that moment?

– No. I have told you. Your soul and mind return to the Real Mind. You will know what you have done that is good and bad without need of an external Judgement.

And if we have done badly?

– You yourself will want to make amends. You will ardently desire the opportunity.

Will it be given to us?

– Yes. In one of many forms.

But not in another life like this one, as a human being?

– No.

Or as an animal?

– No. In a spiritual form. When you have completed your life as a human being you have completed your cycle of physical lives. Your next life, whether you have done well or badly, will be one of service as a spirit. The kind of service will depend on your previous lives.

Will we be alone in this service, or rejoined to our Real Mind?

– That depends. If you have done well you will be rejoined to your Real Mind. You will have become fit for that kind of greater service.

And if we have done badly?

– You will be alone.

And if we have done evil?

– You will be still more alone. You will have put yourself further away from help.

Can such a spirit recover?

– Yes. There is no finality of evil until the last moment of the last day. And then the finality will come from the decision of the spirit, and not by God’s Will. God condemns no one, Satan least of all.

This time of service and possible recovery might be considered as a kind of Purgatory?

– Yes. The Church is not in error in teaching the doctrine of Purgatory. Only the popular imagery is wrong.

And Limbo? The place to which unbaptised infants were supposed to go, and the spirits of good pagans?

– That was nonsense. God does not create souls in order to separate them from Himself.

REAL MIND AND GREATER MIND

You have told me that a soul which has done well returns to its Real Mind and is rejoined to it. Does a time come when the Real Mind is rejoined to its Greater Mind?

– Of course. This is the purpose of temporal existence. That the hierarchy of Minds should become One.

Will you give me another image of the relationship between an individual and his Real Mind?

– Imagine you are sitting on a balcony, looking at the world. Behind you is a room, and an open window into it, but the window has curtains drawn across it. You put your arm through the curtains so that your hand is inside the room. Now imagine that your hand has its own consciousness of self, and believes it is an independent being. All it knows is the curtained room. It is quite unaware of being attached to you, to a greater body, and still less aware of the vast world and sky at which you are looking. For your hand, the room is the world, and universe, and its fingers and thumb and palm and knuckles are its whole self. All that exists for it of humanity are other hands, thrust through other windows. It treats all talk of a world outside the curtains as mysticism or superstition, and of the existence of greater bodies than itself to which it is attached and from which it draws its life, as nonsense. To be withdrawn through the curtain is death, for your self-conscious hand. Some superstitious hands believe that a kind of life exists beyond the curtain, and talk of spirit-hands, and ethereal fingers engaged in eternal prayer. Other hands believe that beyond the curtain there is nothing, and that flesh and bone turn to dust, and that is the end.

Now visualise the actuality, the withdrawal of your hand from the curtained room, into the sunlight of the balcony, the hand’s recovery of a sense of belonging, of unity with you, your mind, your whole body. Your hand does not cease to be your hand, but becomes one with you. It shares your feelings and your knowledge, sees with your eyes, hears with your ears, speaks with your voice. It sees the sky, the sun, the stars, the world before you. That is an image of your relationship to your Real Mind. And yet it is the palest and most unsatisfactory of images. The reality is a thousand times greater, and stronger.

Now imagine a similar relationship between your Real Mind and the Greater Mind of which it forms a part, except for the ignorance of belonging, and you may begin to have a shadowy awareness of reality.

THE LAST DAYS

Are the last days truly beginning?

– Yes. Do you not see the wars, the famines, the earthquakes and catastrophes that the Gospels foretell?

But there have always been these things since the beginning of history. It makes everything else written in this book sound like stupidity, to be crying out at the end of it, “The end is near!”

– But the end is near. That it why this book had to be written.

Why choose me to write it? Why not a theologian, someone with a great reputation for wisdom, or holiness?

– I choose where I choose.

Is AntiChrist to come?

– He is already here. He is ready to become the ruler of the world.

According to the prophecies and to Revelations, there are to be more Anti-Christs than one. Is this true?

– Yes. There are three Anti-Christs. They will rule together.

Will this take a long time?

– Only a few years. But they will be terrible years.

Will they be years of war?

– Not as you understand war. They will be years of misery and persecution, of famine and catastrophes, of revolutions and despair.

Revelations seem to speak of the Mother of God being driven into the desert, and hunted by a terrible enemy. Is this an image of the persecution of the Church?

– Yes. The Church and the few faithful will be driven into dark places, and hunted down like rats, or wolves. They will be treated as the lepers of mankind.

Is the imagery of Revelation, of the Dragon, and the Creature from the Sea, and the third Creature rising up from the earth, merely imagery, or is there a hidden truth there that we must seek out, like a mystery?

– There is a hidden truth, and you should strive hard to seek it out.

Are these images of the three Anti-Christs?

– Yes.

One from the sky? One from the sea? One from beneath the

– Yes.

And everyone in the world is to be forced to worship the Creature from the Sea?

– Yes.

And to be marked with a sign acknowledging submission and worship?

– Yes. If they do not receive the sign on their bodies they will be persecuted.

And if they receive it, if they accept it, it will mean turning away from God?

– Worse than that. It will mean blasphemy against God and His Son and the Holy Spirit. I tell you, these days and years will be terrible for mankind. And worst of all for the faithful. They will be tortured before they are killed.

Who can withstand much torture? Today’s tortures are already so terrible that no one can withstand them.

– They must withstand them. I will give them strength if they believe in Me.

What are you making me write down?

– The truth. Write.

I shall be treated as a madman.

– Nevertheless, write.

Does the number of the Beast mean anything? 666 or 616?

– The number is 666. And it has great meaning.

Is it the mark that Anti-Christ will impose on his followers?

– No. It is the Number of his name.

How can it be interpreted?

– By the letters of his name in English.

Perhaps he will be Chinese, or Russian?

– No. He will be American.

And he will rise from the sea?

– He will have taken refuge in the sea.

And the dragon fallen from the sky?

– He will come from another world. I have told you. Such men are already in your world.

And the third creature, rising from the earth?

– He will have been hidden in deep caves, from the catastrophes that have overwhelmed mankind.

And the Church will remain to the end? There will be a Pope?

– He will be in hiding, his life threatened. There are not many more Popes to be chosen.

How many more?

– Three.* [This was written during the reign of Paul VI.]

Does the present Pope know these things?

– Yes. He suffers for mankind, and the Church, and his successors.

Can any of us hope to remain faithful?

– Only by prayer. Pray and pray.

And the seven plagues? And the scarlet woman riding on the Beast? And the ten kings who will combine against her? Are all these things a covering for truth and reality?

– Yes.

Can I interpret them?

– Not yet.

And Armageddon? Is that to be a real battle, with nuclear weapons?

– Yes. But the nuclear weapons will be destroyed

Christ spoke of fake Messiahs who would come during these last times.

– They will come soon

Are they the same as the three Anti-Christs?

– No. They are fake teachers.

How can we know they are false?

– Because they will promise you ways of escape. They will be in hiding. The true Son of God will not come like that. He will come in glory at the end.

Will they convince some people?

– They will convince many. That is another reason for this book.

But if people take any notice of this book they may say that it is false teaching.

– They may. Let them read the Gospels.

How long is it before all these things begin to happen?

– They have begun.

And the coming of the false Messiahs? And the Anti-Christs? The catastrophes and famines and persecutions? How soon will they all come?

– In your lifetime.

I am already almost old.

– The answer is still the same.

And after that? Before the end comes?

– You may still live to see the end.

THE HOUSE ON THE ROCK

If all the things that you have just told me about are bound to happen, what good is anything? Everything will be swept away.

– Every thing, but not every creature. That is why you are writing down what I tell you, so that people may still have time to prepare.

How can one prepare for Armageddon?

– In a physical sense, you cannot. But in a spiritual sense, in many ways. Some of the ways you have already written in this book. By prayer, by listening, by learning to see and hear, by self-restraint, by love. Above all by love. By love of God, love for the Blessed Virgin who is the Holy Spirit, by love of the Son of God, by love of your fellows, by love of God’s creation. Love those who persecute you, those who hate you, those who torture you. Save them by your love. There is still time to learn these things, to build your house of the spirit on the living rock. Then it can never be swept away.

THE FREEMASONS

May a Christian be a Freemason?

– No.

Why not?

– Freemasonry is a heresy, a deviation from the truth. No matter how innocent the present-day Freemasonry may be, its roots are in heresy.

What heresy?

– The same heresy that tainted knighthood in the Middle Ages, and that in one form became Catharism. It was a denial of life, and ultimately a surrender to the Devil.

Yet knighthood was supposed to be the flower of mediaeval Christendom?

– Many knights were devout Christians. But within the order there was heresy. The ideals were heretical. Ultimately these ideals derived from Mithraism, the soldiers’ cult of the Roman Empire. The true Lord of Knighthood was Mithras, not Christ.

Was it this that destroyed the Templars?

– That, and other heresies they brought from Palestine.

And the Mystery of the Grail? Was this heretical?

– Yes. In the eyes of the Church at that time. There was a Mithraic influence. The Grail legends are based on initiation rituals into a cult that sprang from a mixture of Christianity and Mithraism. But while the legends and the cult were heretical, the heresy was innocent, and in this instance necessary, to preserve the true Mystery of the Grail. I shall tell you about that Mystery elsewhere. As for Mithraism itself, it descended from an earlier, incomplete revelation, yet still a revelation of the truth. In Wales and in Brittany many great families belonged to it by tradition and inclination, even into the Middle Ages. It had an attraction for aristocracy and noblemen.

Did Mithraism involve the sacrifice of the god, or of a leader in his place?

– Yes. William Rufus of England, the Conqueror’s son, is an example. He was a follower of the Cult.

Some scholars have claimed that he belonged to the witch cult, and his death was a sacrifice to the earth, and the powers of fertility.

– The peasants believed that, and accepted his death as a sacrifice for them. The two cults were so to speak allied, in opposition to Christianity.

Were they similar in beliefs?

– Not in fundamental beliefs. The origins of Mithraism lay in nature worship, but it had become a quite different cult over a long period. Many heresies entered into it by the times we are speaking of. Homosexual love played a great part in it, and dualism, a belief that the material world was evil by origin and nature.

This seems the opposite of witchcraft?

– It was. But men are not logical in their beliefs, peasants and soldiers least of all. Opposition to Christianity, and persecution by the Church at a later time overcame all questions of logic.

And the Troubadours and their apparent worship of Our Lady? Were these not part of the cult of Knighthood?

– No. These also were heretical, but not based on Mithraism. Their beliefs were pure dualism. And yet again, the cults formed an alliance, as they did with the Cathars.

Was the Church right to persecute such heretics?

– No. It should have persuaded them, and converted them by love, and the example of Its own perfection.

Was there good as well as bad in these heresies? In some of their ideals?

– Yes. Often great good. But by following a false path the goodness was wasted, and ruined.

Yet the legends of the Grail are beautiful.

– Yes. But it is a corrupted beauty. It is not perfect.

You said that these heresies entered into freemasonry?

– After the Templars were destroyed as an Order, some of their surviving members took refuge among bands of itinerant masons. These masons possessed a guild, and a code of secrecy, and mutual help. Many had worked for the Templars and their allies in times of prosperity. The Templars committed their secret doctrines to their new companions.

Was the Guild of Masons already ancient? Connected with the building of Solomon’s Temple?

– No. That is only a legend.

How old was the organisation?

– Already old. A few hundred years. It grew with the rebirth of building in cut stone, after the Dark Ages.

And the influence of the Templars turned the guild from one of workmen into one of philosophers, or heretics?

– Eventually. Not very deep philosophers. But many 18th century thinkers belonged to some branch of the Order.

Did they help to bring about the French Revolution?

– Yes. They gave it its form and guided its beginnings.

Were they evil? Did they wish to destroy Christianity?

– No. Only its distortions.

And the Illumunati? Were they evil?

– Yes. They were and are truly evil.

They still exist?

– Yes. They are the counterpart of the Essenes.

Are they allied to the Freemasons?

– No. The Freemasons wish to do good. The Illuminati are dedicated to evil. And under different names they have always existed.

But all serious historians make fun of the Illuminate. Their antics in the late 18th century seem ridiculous.

– They wished them to seem so. Not all the members shared the inner secrets. Many members were as foolish as they seemed.

Do they still exist openly?

– No. In secret. Like the Essenes. And as few in numbers. But they have great power. Tremendous power. They are the Devil’s servants in the world.

This kind of revelation will make this book seem as foolish as the known antics of the Illuminate. Mere sensationalism and nonsense.

– I am afraid it will.

Would you prefer me to leave it out?

– No. Put it in. Someone may listen.

ON DELUSION

If anyone reads this book they will almost certainly accuse me either of telling lies or of being self-deluded. Can I even be sure that I am not deluding myself?

– Do you believe that you are?

No. I know that I am not. But I’m not sure that I feel that I am not.

– Did you know all the things that are in this book before you wrote them down?

No. Not a tenth of them. Not a hundredth. And about the one hundredth part I was not certain. You have constantly surprised and astonished me.

– Then that is not likely to be self-delusion.

But the world and history are full of religious cranks and false prophets and people who are sure they have seen the Virgin Mary. And those who are most certain they are right have been the ones who were most wrong.

– Not always. Some prophets have been right. So have some religious cranks as you call them. And some people have seen the Virgin Mary. No one should judge by the claims. Only by the results. No one will believe you because you say you have talked with Me. Some may believe you because they are convinced by what you have written down.

THE CHARISMATIC MOVEMENT

Is the Charismatic Movement good? No. What is wrong with it? Is it not like the early Church, filled with love and the workings of the Holy Spirit?

– It is filled with hysteria. It will do great harm to the Church.

Yet it seems to be bringing people back to the Church, and increasing their Faith?

– People must return to the Church for the right reasons, and their Faith must be in the right beliefs. The Charismatic Movement is a heresy.

When this book is read I shall have no friends at all. I shall have insulted everyone.

– Except Me.

This is my constant terror. People will say “How dare he write down such words? That he talks with God and God approves of what he writes! He is committing blasphemy!” I would say the same myself.

– Nevertheless, you must write as I direct.

It would be funny if it wasn’t frightening. People will jeer at me, the man who talks to God!

– They may. Would you rather not write?

No.

– Then write.

THE IMMACULATE CONCEPTION

You have told me that the Mother of Jesus was an ordinary woman in her lifetime, with all a woman’s thoughts and feelings, and that as a young woman she was ignorant?

– Yes.

Yet how could she have been ordinary, how could she have been subject to human temptations, if she was immaculately conceived? Is the doctrine of the Immaculate Conception untrue?

– It is a great truth. Nevertheless Mary was a woman, a human being.

But if she was born without the taint or stain of original Sin; if she did not share in the guilt of Adam’s Fall, how can she have been fully human?

– She was the perfect human, the perfect woman. She was born to the same state of innocence and perfection as Eve before the Fall. But just as Eve, though perfect, was subject to temptation, and could fall, so was Mary subject to the attacks of the Devil. Her perfection did not free Her from temptation, it made Her more subject to it. The Devil used all His powers to tempt and ruin Her, and failed. Therefore the Holy Spirit could come to Her and dwell in Her, and become One with Her. The Doctrine of Mary’s Oneness with the Holy Spirit is to be the last great teaching of the Church, and the sign of the last days of this era.

THE CHRISTIAN LIFE

What is the ideal life for a Christian? Is it one of complete poverty?

– No. One of prayer.

But is poverty a help to prayer?

– It can be. But poverty of spirit, not of goods, necessarily. A life of humility. It is difficult for a rich man to be humble, but it is possible.

Then a rich man need not give up his wealth?

– No. He should use it in the service of others. And he should pray to be guided in its use. He himself should live simply.

May we take joy in things that money can provide? In motor cars, in going to theatres, in beautiful objects, in taking holidays? In travel?

– Yes, within reason, and knowing always that these are secondary things, that they are pleasures which pass swiftly away.

Would it be better to do without them?

– Yes.

Even travel on foot?

– Yes. Unless the travel was in God’s service.

Then total poverty is best?

– No. Total simplicity. But I told you in the beginning, there are many paths to God. Some are shorter than others, but all reach the same end.

You say total simplicity not poverty . Yet St. Francis gave up all possessions. Was he not choosing the perfect way?

– Yes. For his time and place. The present world can no longer understand that kind of sacrifice and would degrade it. The Christian should seek to be independent of the world, both its luxuries and its charity. If he or she is able to earn a living the Christian should do so, and live in independence.

Those who withdraw from modern life, to live in self-supporting communes, or by themselves, to grow their own food, and do without machines or luxuries, are they right to do so?

– Yes, if their motives are right.

What should their motives be?

– To find God.

If such people have children, are they entitled to make such a choice for their children as well as for themselves?

– Their children will bless them for it. Such days are coming that only those who have chosen such a life and can live it will survive.

But those who cannot live it? Or cannot choose it, because of obligations in the world? Can they save themselves, both spiritually and physically?

– Spiritually yes. I have told you so. By prayer and humility and love. As for physically, all physical survival is a brief thing. It does not matter in the end if they survive in their bodies. But it will be hard for them before they die.

FERTILE PERIOD

You have said that the only means of contraception Christians may use is to abstain during the woman’s fertile period?

– Yes.

And yet you wish them to find great joy in love-making?

– Yes.

But many women say that it is only during their fertile period that they feel like love-making. That during their infertile period their desires are less, or even non-existent.

– For such women physical passion does not play a great part in their lives. To abstain from sex altogether, or until they feel they can allow themselves to become pregnant, would not in their case be so fearful a sacrifice.

This sounds like a man’s answer rather than a woman’s?

– It is merely a factual one. There is no necessity for the kind of woman you describe to abstain from sex completely. If she chooses to abstain not only during her fertile period, in order to avoid pregnancy, but also during her infertile period because she then feels no desires, her physical passions are not very great, and her sacrifice is accordingly less.

But her sacrifice is total. She will never enjoy sex unless she desires to become pregnant.

– That is her burden. And as I have told you, it is a burden that she herself, in her Real Mind, has willingly chosen, before her physical life began.

This is no consolation to a woman who is unaware of having made such a choice.

– I am sorry for her case. But I repeat, her sacrifice is not so great as it would be if her physical passions were more urgent and continuous. And during the infertile periods when she could make love if she wished, can she not draw consolation from mutual tenderness? You are speaking as if the only aspect of love that interested such a woman was the purely physical pleasure to be gained from intercourse. She may obtain and give the greatest and deepest emotional joy even if the physical joy is much less than it would by during her fertile period.

How?

– By allowing her husband to make love to her. By physical closeness leading to emotional and spiritual closeness. By many different forms of tenderness that she must deny herself and her husband during her fertile period, for fear of their leading to intercourse and pregnancy. If her only interest in love-making is to receive physical satisfaction, then such advice is of little help to her. But if she is unselfish and truly loving, desiring to give satisfaction more than to receive it, then she will in fact receive a great deal.

THE STATUS OF WOMEN AND RELIGION

It seems, looking round the world, that all religions treat women badly. Mahommedanism, Hinduism, Catholicism – I know that you say that this last is not by your wish, but it does happen. Wherever a society is deeply religious, women have a bad time. Why is this?

– Because men are as they are. They wish to keep women in subjection, and religion gives them the excuse. Even the Mohammedan religion gives no justification for treating women as inferior beings. Mohammedan men take from the Koran what suits them. Catholic men do the same, taking from the Church’s teaching only those things that flatter their prejudices, and serve their selfishness in regard to women.

But why is it always religion that provides these excuses for men to enslave women?

– It is not only religion. Men use economics and politics in the same way. They use their own laws in the same way, ignoring those that might favour a better status for women. But religion, where a society is religious, provides the most powerful weapon for subjecting women to men. Men use it to claim that it is God’s Will that things should be as they wish them to be. They are lying, but the women cannot prove it.

Why do you not allow them or help them to prove it?

– What do you wish Me to do?

I don’t know. But something. Could there not be a development of religion which favoured women rather than men? Or at least demonstrated their equality? You yourself claim to believe in effective equal rights for women, but you say a woman cannot be a priest, for example.

– Our Lady is God. Is that not enough?

No one yet believes that.

– I am telling people. That is what I am doing to redress the balance.

PRAYER

Do we help the dead by having masses said for them?

– No.

Do masses for the dead have no value at all?

– They have the same value as every other mass, but none for the souls of the dead. These cannot be helped in such a way.

Should the Church abolish the practice?

– Yes.

Should we pray for the dead in any other way?

– Yes.

By reciting Rosaries? Or some particular prayers?

– No. Only by asking that God’s Will be done towards them.

Do you disapprove of formal prayers altogether?

– No. Only of prayers that become formalities. The person praying must feel the prayer. If he or she does this deeply enough, the words are unnecessary.

Yet you yourself have told me to recite the Rosary as a formula, without attending to the words or their meaning.

– Only as a means to a spiritual end. To put your mind into a state of receptiveness so that you can hear God’s voice.

Then do no prayers have any value in themselves?

– No. There is no purpose or value in the mere repetition of words, unless the repetition is part of a spiritual exercise from which you draw spiritual strength. It is useless for example to recite the Rosary for a friend’s recovery from sickness, or to help your son pass an examination. You are wasting your breath. Prayer does not and cannot act in this way.

How does it act?

– I have told you. Repetitive prayers are one means of preparing your mind to receive God. That is their sole value. When you have learned to receive God, then your only prayer of intercession must be, Thy Will be done, and for this an attitude of the heart and mind and soul are what matters. You no longer need to say the words.

So that one must simply be acquiescent? One must do nothing, and wish for nothing?

– No! You must do the opposite! To pray that God’s Will be done is not acquiescent. It is a positive and great desire that the world be changed.

But none of us can hope for that. All we can hope for from our own prayers is that a friend may get better from illness, or our child will do well at school, or something of that kind. And you say we must not pray for those things.

– Again, no. I said it is useless to pray for them with formal, empty prayers, and it is useless to ask for them if you have no spiritual strength with which to do it. If you had no physical strength you could not help a friend in physical danger. If you have no spiritual strength you cannot help anyone in spiritual danger.

How can one get spiritual strength?

– Only from God. By the ways I have been describing to you. If you have no spiritual strength, all your prayers are useless. I you possess it, then your briefest prayer will be heard.

But will it be answered?

– If it is rightly directed, yes. It must always be that God’s Will should be done to and for your friend, your child, the object of your prayers. Nothing else.

Surely God’s Will is always done?

– You know it is not. If it was the world would be perfect; there would be no death, no suffering. It is because God’s Will is frustrated again and again by the Devil, and man’s failures, that true prayer is needed. God needs the spiritual strength that men can develop in order that a greater part of His Will may prevail. The whole of your life should be spent in developing spiritual strength for this purpose, so that you may help God’s Will be done. But this is a very different matter from giving money to have masses said for the ‘souls in purgatory’ or reciting the Rosary for your mother’s health. These practices are harmless, but useless, and can even be harmful, by persuading people that this is really prayer, and that no more is necessary.

Yet Christ Himself said, if two or three are gathered together in My Name.

– Exactly so. He said ‘In My Name.’ In other words, to support My Will. And it must go without needing to be said that He meant two or three who have the power to pray effectively in such a manner; two or three who have spiritual strength. He was not speaking of those who merely recite the words.

Then are the prayers said in Churches useless? Surely most of the people in the congregation are merely reciting the words? They do not think they should do any more than that.

– If that is so, their prayers are useless.

And the priest’s prayers?

– The answer is the same.

Even the Mass itself? If the priest merely recites the words without any inner intensity or spiritual strength within himself, has the Mass no virtue in it?

– The Mass is not a prayer. It is a sacrifice. Its virtue was established once and for all by Christ.

Yet surely it is a form of words that brings the sacrifice into being during each Mass?

– No. The Mass could be performed without words. It is a series of actions that creates the Mass, and for these the priest possesses spiritual strength as a Grace from God at his ordination. But if he does not add meaning to these actions from within his own mind the Mass has no value for him as an individual. He too must know how to pray, if he is to benefit from his own Mass.

The simple of heart will find this very difficult, to learn that their Litanies and Novenas have no value.

– If they are truly simple of heart their prayers have great value, and the forms with which they surround them are unimportant. The love of God and the desire that His Will be done find their way most easily into simple hearts.

What do you say of prayers set by the priest as a penance? The recitation of a decade of the Rosary or two Rosaries, or whatever it may be?

– The answer is still the same. What matters is the contrition with which these prayers are said. Not the number of the prayers. The number is merely an indication of the priest’s opinion of the gravity of the sin. Its purpose is to make the penitent reflect more deeply. To recite without such a depth of reflection and remorse would be valueless. Surely you know this already?

Is Confession itself necessary? To a priest?

– No. One should confess to God.

Should we abandon the practice of personal, secret Confessions?

– No. It is good for humility, and as a source of spiritual strength. The priest has the power to grant you this added strength in his absolution. But it is not essential for true penitence.

Can we obtain absolution without the priest’s hearing us and granting it?

– Yes. If your contrition is sincere, and you cannot find a priest to hear you, God will grant you absolution. But the obligation remains to find a priest to hear you as soon as possible. He will confirm God’s absolution to you.

Do you approve of public Confession? One after another of a congregation confessing their sins aloud?

– No. This is exhibitionism. It has nothing to do with Faith.

HOLY OBJECT S AND THE CULT OF SAINTS

Do Holy Water, Rosary Beads blessed by a priest, Holy Medals, scapulars and other such objects have any spiritual value?

– No. They sometimes give emotional comfort to their owners, but that is their only value.

Should we do without them?

– Yes.

And Holy Water from Lourdes? From the spring that comes from the rock where Our Lady stood? Has that no especial significance or value?

– That water does have great value, but not because it has been blessed by a priest. It is a reminder of Our Lady’s presence in the world and Her love for mankind.

Is not the Rosary a similar reminder?

– Yes.

Then do you draw a distinction between Lourdes water and a chaplet of Rosary beads, as regards their value?

– Yes. The beads are manufactured objects. Your fingers will serve as well to recite the Rosary. The water from the spring is of a different order of things. Its contact with Our Lady is direct and natural.

This seems to me a fine distinction. Surely any stone from a field was made by God?

– The distinction is fine. But it exists.

Should we then all seek to obtain some water from the spring at Lourdes?

– No. Great as its value is, this value is as nothing compared to one true prayer.

And the relics of saints and martyrs? The Church teaches that every altar must have such a relic embedded in it. Do you approve of this?

– No.

Do these relics have no value, then? No more than beads or medals or Holy Water?

– No. Many are false. None have any spiritual value. They are superstitions.

Should altars be without them?

– Yes! God is on the altar. Do you think that more is needed?

But do the relics not serve as reminders to the congregation of the Church’s continuity? Of the existence of saints?

– They should not need such reminders.

Do you approve of the cults of particular saints? Of praying to St. Anthony to find lost objects? Of praying to this Saint for the blessing of a child, or that one for a Happy Death?

– No! One should pray to God. The Saints themselves despair at such relics of paganism.

But God seems so remote. People long for an intercessor nearer to their own humanity and understanding.

– Was Christ not human? Our Lady?

The Church regards Our Lady as the Chief of Saints, and Her cult as the greatest of such cults within the Faith.

– The Church is wrong in this. There should be no cults within the Faith. And Our Lady is God, She is the Holy Spirit, as I have told you. To pray to Her, to worship Her, is not a cult, but the Faith itself.

Do you disapprove of statues of saints in churches?

– Yes.

And of Our Lady? Of Jesus? Of the Sacred Heart?

– Yes. They are there for men’s weakness. It would be better to be able to do without them.

And crucifixes? Should we do without those?

– Yes.

Yet you have told me that you condemn the Church for abandoning some of its traditional practices.

– I condemn the motive, not the abandonment. And the Church has abandoned things of value and retained things of no value.

People will believe these answers come from the Devil. Must I write them down?

– Yes. A time is coming when none of these objects will be available to Christians. When crucifixes and holy objects, statues and relics will be forbidden and destroyed. Their reality must be in people’s hearts, not in images.

Could the Faith have survived so long without them? By mere verbal teaching and the reading of books?

– Yes. They have been a hindrance, not a help.

But in times of persecution Christians have clung to beads and crucifixes and such things as constant reminders of the Faith. When they have had no priests and no sacraments these objects have in a sense taken their place and served to concentrate their minds on loyalty to God. Is that not true?

– Yes. But it would have been better if they had not needed material reminders. All such things distract the mind from God, and place themselves between God and man as barriers, rather than as means of union.

Do you say the same of gestures, of making the Sign of the Cross? Of kneeling to pray, of striking one’s breast in contrition during the reciting of the General Confession?

– Yes. As actions they are meaningless. It is the mind’s attitude and actions that are important.

Would you prefer us to abandon them?

– I would prefer you to be able to abandon them.

And the priest’s vestments? His stole and alb and chasuble? The bishop’s mitre? All the regalia? Have they any value or significance?

– None.

The Church building itself? The altar?

– None.

But the Mass must be celebrated somewhere? The priest must be clothed somehow? Or do you say the Mass itself is unnecessary?

– No. The Mass must be carried out. But where, and what clothes the priest wears while he makes the sacrifice – these things are unimportant.

The chalice? The paten? Do these matter?

– Any cup and plate would do.

The Sanctuary? The monstrance?

– They are unnecessary.

Are even the bread and wine necessary?

– Only the bread.

Are you preparing people’s minds for a time of persecution, when there will be no possibility of having the traditional surroundings and objects?

– Yes!

Suppose that even bread was not available?

– A cup of water would do. A drop of water. A grain of rice. Any fragment of food that the body can absorb, except meat. A fragment of fish would do.

Yet this itself seems like paganism, a reliance on matter rather than the spirit. Why do we need a material fragment or liquid to bring God into our bodies and minds?

– Your body is material. There must be a material channel between God as spirit and your physical body, however slight that channel is. I am reducing it for you to a minimum.

Then if this material link between God and man, between the world of the spirit and of matter, is necessary with the Host in the Mass, then is it not sometimes necessary elsewhere? Cannot an object sometimes be a channel of Grace? A particular relic, a picture, a crucifix?

– Yes. But these objects are rare, and they possess their virtue not as relics, or pictures, or crucifixes, or statues, but as objects into which God has poured Grace for a particular purpose. They then serve as storehouses of Grace on which particular men or women can draw, as if God had set up a bank balance in their favour. But I repeat that this is rare.

You say that it applies to particular individuals?

– Yes. Only to them. Because they will have especial needs.

Is this a mystery like that of the Essenes?

– Yes.

Does the person know that he or she possesses such an object?

– He will be told when it is necessary.

Suppose he should lose it? Or the object be smashed or stolen? Can that happen?

– No. It will be protected for him. Or her.

But if such persons have so great a need of Grace, and God has such a particular care for them, why do they need more than His love?

– I have told you. They live in a physical world. There must be a bridge between that world and the world of the Spirit.

Did the Apostles possess such objects, such physical channels of Grace?

– They did not need them. They had seen God in human form. Had touched Him, lived with Him. He had laid His hands on them and blessed them.

But those who came after them?

– They possessed such objects when they needed them.

You speak of a time of persecution coming. When this time is over, and the Church has survived, as you have promised it will, should it do without all the material aids we have been discussing? Aside from these especial channels of Grace?

– Yes. It will no longer need them, even to aid people’s weakness.

You have told me of the Mass. Are baptism and the other sacraments essential?

– Some. I shall tell you which, elsewhere.

Is Holy Water not necessary for baptism?

– No. Any water would do. Water itself is unnecessary. Godparents are unnecessary. A lay person can baptise an infant by the devout intention of baptising it. It is unnecessary even to touch it. An inward prayer that the child may be accepted by God as His is sufficient.

Why is even this necessary?

– It is not necessary.

Do you then disapprove of infant baptism?

– No. It has a spiritual value. But you know that this baptism must be renewed and confirmed by the child when he or she is old enough.

And if it is not renewed? Does the child lose the benefit of having been baptised?

– He or she does not lose it, but he draws no advantage from possessing it.

Can a lay person help in that renewal or confirmation if there is no priest available?

– Yes.

But why are even such formalities necessary? You have told me that so much is unnecessary. Can a child not reach you without such things as baptism and confirmation?

– Of course the child can. The adult can. But these sacraments are an acceptance by your mind of spiritual truth. To say they are mere formalities and unnecessary would be to say that the spiritual truth is unnecessary. The truth is essential. Man’s acceptance of it is essential. These formalities are a direct path to its acceptance, they prepare the mind to be able to accept it. There are other paths as you know. But this one is easier to follow.

And ordination?

– This too. The priest accepts the truth. In return, by opening his mind in this particular way he receives Grace and strength for his calling. There are other paths to God than the priesthood. Ordination means that the man has chosen this path rather than another. And it is a path of immense value to others besides the priest himself. It is the highest path.

Do the lives nuns lead have value? Spiritual value for the world as well as for themselves?

– No.

I have to ask you again. Do you disapprove of the institution itself, of a woman becoming a nun?

– Yes.

I cannot believe I have understood you. Do you mean that nuns have always been mistaken in believing they were obeying God’s Will?

– No. In the past the institution had great value, it was of great service to the world. Now that time is gone, and the present world requires a different kind of service.

But you yourself told me to read St. Theresa. The children of Fatima, Bernadette, were told by Our Lady to become nuns.

– That time has gone.

And you criticised the Church for altering nuns’ mediaeval costumes to a more modern fashion!

– I criticised the motive, as I told you, not the change.

And those who are nuns now? Should they give up their vows?

– No. They should keep them devoutly. But they should not seek for novices.

Why? Is it that in a time of persecution they will be too vulnerable?

– No.

Then what has changed? How can something that had value yesterday have none today?

– I tell you, the world has changed. It is no longer capable of receiving Grace and value from the prayers and sacrifices of nuns. And value and Grace that are not accepted, are worthless, as far as the world is concerned. The nuns can still help themselves to find God. They are no longer able to help the world.

Then what must the convents do? The religious orders?

– They must come to an end.

And orders of monks? Friars?

– Those too.

What must men and women do then, who wish to serve God, and who would have entered the religious life?

– They must serve God in the world. That is where they are needed. In factories, in offices, everywhere. There is a desperate need for men and women who are in the world and are part of the world and yet who live in union with God. They must live like God’s agents among men.

Should they make themselves known as such?

– By their actions rather than their words. They should teach by example and pray in secret.

Should they even say that they are Christians? Catholics?

– If they are asked. They need not announce it publicly.

Should they not try to teach? To spread the Gospel?

– They will do that by living it.

Christ and His apostles and disciples preached aloud, and taught in public.

– That time too has gone by. The time that is coming is one of secrecy. The Faith must be handed from individual to trusted individual and kept in secret.

But why will it be persecuted? People believe less and less. Will they think the Faith important enough to deserve persecution?

– Those who are directing the coming times know very well the value of the Faith, and that those who possess it are their strongest enemies. Excuses will be found to persecute everyone who calls himself or herself a Christian. And the Catholics will be the most despised and hated and persecuted of all. They will be the Jews and gypsies of the new tyranny.

Looking round me, terrible as things seem, it is hard to imagine such things happening.

– In half the world they are already happening.

GOD

I think that modern theologians consider You to be solely an Abstraction, a Concept, without desires, or needs or any quality that human beings could recognise as those of a living Person. Are they correct?

– Do you believe that they are?

No. But I am no longer sure of anything. Except for what you have already told me.

– Could an Abstraction have spoken to you as I have spoken?

No.

– Or told you the things that I have told you?

No.

– Then do you believe that I am a living Person?

Yes.

– And that I have needs, and desires?

Yes.

– One cannot love without desires. Desires for those one loves.

THE WAYS TO PERFECTION

There is still something I do not understand about the ways to Perfection. Some of those who seem nearest to Perfection seem also to have no knowledge of ‘seeing’ or of ‘hearing’. And yet you have told me that if we desire to seek Perfection we must learn to hear and see.

– Have I told you that? And how do you know that the people you speak of do not possess these abilities?

They show no signs of having them, or of knowing that they exist. They follow no discipline of diet or exercise or meditation. They are simply and deeply good. They love.

– If they love rightly, that is enough.

Then seeing and hearing are not essential?

– Nothing is essential but to love God, and His Creation. Seeing and hearing are ways towards Love. There are other ways. I have told you that there are a thousand Paths. If you have developed the gift of Loving, nothing else is necessary. Do you remember the woman who brought the ointment to anoint Christ’s head and feet? And how He said of her, she has loved much, and there-fore much will be forgiven her?

Yes.

– And if you have developed the gift of enduring great suffering for God’s sake, that is a deep kind of love, and nothing else is necessary. The sick, and the maimed, the blind and the poor, the prisoners and the imbeciles, those who suffer tyranny and injustice, and offer their sufferings for My sake, these have no need for other ways to find Me. I am with them already in their sufferings. They may learn to hear and see, and draw great comfort from what they hear, and what they see, as lovers can. But they have no need to learn.

Hearing and seeing are principally for the Way of Obedience, so that My obedient servants may know at every instant what I require of them. These gifts are not for their entertainment, or to satisfy their curiosity, but to let them know My Will, so that they may obey it. Without the gifts of hearing and of seeing they could not reach Perfection.

GOD AND THE DEVIL

How far do You interfere in men’s affairs?

– Very far, at times.

Are some happenings that appear terrible to us, actually by Your Will, and for our ultimate happiness?

– Yes. But not your happiness in this world.

And other terrible events are caused by the Devil’s action?

– Yes.

Do You interfere in other ways? To bring someone to a better knowledge of You, so that he or she may serve You, and serve others? Or to protect Your servants, or make their service more effective?

– Yes.

While the Devil attempts to ruin all Your plans?

– Yes.

Can You prevent His doing this?

– Not always.

And yet You must be infinitely stronger than the Devil?

– Imagine an immense contest between two chess players. A game of chess not as you know it, of two dimensions, and thirty-two pieces, but of fifty, a hundred dimensions, and an almost infinite number of pieces, each piece alive, and free to act for itself, and defy either of the players. I am one player, and the Devil is my opponent. And we do not possess each our own half of the pieces as a human chess player does. Our contest is first to persuade the pieces to obey the one of us, or the other. And having persuaded them, then to use them according to our strategy for ultimate victory in the contest.

In such a contest, strength as you call it becomes a secondary thing. A human chess player who is physically strong might sweep the pieces from the board, and prevent his opponent from recommencing the game. But this would not give him victory as a chess player.

If you allow all this to be an analogy, and if you keep in mind that the words ‘play’ and ‘players’ convey an utterly wrong impression of the nature of the contest we are discussing, then you may begin to understand the conflict between Myself and the Devil, and the limitations that I must impose upon Myself.

DESTINY

People speak of Destiny. Of humans having an individual destiny which they cannot escape. I have heard even learned Catholics speak in this way, as if Free Will did not affect the material events of one’s life, but only one’s interior, spiritual attitude. Is there truth m this?

– No. You have free will. Many things limit that free will m certain ways, but you have freedom to lead one life or another, and to change the lives of others, and change events surrounding you I have told you of this before.

Then is there no appointed moment for our deaths for example, which we cannot escape?

– No. Within the limits of human possibilities you may live long or briefly. You may avoid dangers or succumb to them, and much of this will be your own doing.

So that we are free to act both spiritually and physically?

– You have free will to act in any of many, many ways.

But the actions of others may interfere with that freedom? We might for example be killed by someone else’s folly or malice?

– Of course.

And this would not be necessarily our destiny but accident?

– There are no destinies in the sense you speak of. All is fluid.

Nothing at all then is preordained?

– Nothing at all. Not for you. Not for anyone. Nor for Creation. All can change for good or evil. And you are one agent of this change.

Do you mean mankind when you say ‘you’?

– No. I mean you as an individual. Every man, every woman, every child who has ever lived or ever will live, each of them is an agent for good or evil.

But if someone is killed before they have had an opportunity to act for good? Do they and Creation suffer loss for this accident?

– No. They will have an opportunity elsewhere to make good the loss. No life is ever wasted in that way.

But men and women can waste their own lives, their whole opportunity for good?

– Of course. This is a part of freedom.

LIFE

You have told me that all life is holy, and linked together, plant and animal and man. Is it permissible to kill any living thing?

– You must, to live. Even a vegetarian must kill plants, to live.

But may we kill otherwise than for food? May we kill insects that trouble us, or that eat crops, or destroy property, for example?

– Yes.

May we kill mice and rats and other vermin? If it is necessary, and the means are not cruel, yes. Are any humane means permissible?

– Yes. But it is dangerous to use chemical sprays and poisons.

Why?

– These things are used so widely that they are poisoning you. Nor should you use powerful bleaches and antiseptics to kill germs. They kill many microscopic creatures which are necessary for your own well-being.

Is this also true of weed-killers and crop spraying to kill pests?

– Yes. You are destroying the whole balance of nature.

Yet surely many pests have to be destroyed?

– Yes. But you are killing the useful with the harmful. In your own bodies and in the fields. You will soon be required to pay a heavy price for this.

MERCY KILLING

May a Christian ever justly take his own life?

– No.

Even during an incurable illness which causes bodily humiliation and great pain? And suffering to those close to him?

– The answer is still no. These sufferings, for him and for those who love him, are part of the pattern of their existence. If he cuts short his life, or persuades someone to cut it short for him, the pattern remains incomplete, and his task, his spiritual task, in this world, remains unfinished.

Can it not be finished elsewhere, in another fashion?

– Only with great difficulty and at the cost of sufferings far greater than those temporary and physical sufferings he has shortened. We come back again to my frequent answer to you; that if you judge this to be the only world, and physical good and ill to be the only considerations, then you will never be able to understand what I tell you.

Then are there no circumstances ever, in which one may practise euthanasia? If one sees a parent or a wife or a husband in agony, and they beg for a merciful death?

– The answer is the same. No.

But one would put an animal out of its misery. Is this also wrong?

– No. This one should do if the animal’s illness or injuries are incurable.

Yet you tell me that animals also have spiritual immortality; that they are in fact part of us or share nature with us?

– Animals have a different spiritual reality. It is not necessary or right for them to suffer in this way. In their natural state they would die quickly.

In a state of nature there would be no human being there to release them from pain, if the pain threatened to continue for a long time.

– There would be other animals, hunger, thirst. But we are speaking of domestic animals. Man has interfered with their lives in many ways, often cruel ones. It is only right that he should also interfere to give them a merciful death if this becomes necessary.

The same is true of human beings. Medicine can now prolong people’s lives while still leaving them physically helpless and a burden to themselves. Do you approve of this?

– No.

Would you let people die naturally without exaggerated medical interference?

– Yes. The doctor should judge wisely what quality of life he is prolonging.

But he may say that it is not his task to judge such a thing?

– Then whose task is it?

A doctor says that his business is always to preserve life. Never to terminate it.

– He should not terminate it. To decide not to prolong it is another matter.

Should he give drugs to relieve pain?

– Yes.

Even if these drugs, in a sufficient quantity to ease pain completely, might kill a patient already near death?

– The answer in such a case is no. He would then be terminating life, or taking the deliberate risk of terminating it.

If a patient is kept alive by a machine, or medical treatment of any kind, and the doctor judges the patient to have no chance of any form of recovery, nor of staying alive without the help of the machine or the treatment, may he decide to remove the machine or cease the treatment?

– Yes. In such cases he is not terminating life. He is terminating his efforts to prolong it, because he judges his efforts to be useless, and better directed elsewhere.

So that in famous cases where a patient has lain for months or years in a coma, kept alive by a machine, the doctors in charge could justly have removed the machine and allowed the patient to die?

– If there was no chance of recovery they should have done so. It was a waste of valuable resources.

Yet Catholic authorities in at least one case forbade such action.

– They were wrong.

In war, or under tyranny, if someone faces torture and believes himself incapable of withstanding it, may he take his own life?

– No.

But suppose that other people’s lives, and great matters, hang on whether he keeps silence or not. May he not kill himself to ensure the safety of others, or the success of his cause? Modern tortures are said to be unendurable by anyone. And there are drugs which will force a man or woman to tell the truth in spite of all their efforts to remain silent.

– The answer must still be no. He may not take his own life for any reason whatsoever.

Let me put an extreme case. You have told me of persecutions to come. Suppose a man, a Catholic, in such a persecution, possesses a secret which would endanger the very existence of the Church if it was known to the Church’s persecutors. Could he not kill himself if that was the only way to preserve the secret?

– There could be no such secret. The Church will not be preserved or lost by such means.

Then imagine that the lives of bishops and priests and holy women hang on his silence. That if he tells their whereabouts they will themselves be tortured and killed? May he not then kill himself first?

– No. Those he betrays unwillingly must accept their martyrdom.

That may be glorious for them. But it is terrible for him, to die a traitor.

– God will understand.

He will leave the infamy of another Judas behind him.

– That will not concern him. And those who condemn him should also understand, and imagine themselves in his position.

Would it not have been better for Judas and the world if be had hanged himself before the betrayal instead of afterwards?

– No. The world needed the betrayal.

And how great a price has Judas had to pay for the world’s benefit?

– He did not act for the world’s benefit. The world benefited from his act. That is a very different thing. And he was not forced or destined to betray Jesus. If he had not, the Passion would still have happened, I have told you so before. It would have happened in a different way but it would still have happened.

Is his punishment even greater because he hanged himself?

– Yes.

Could he have lived after what he had done?

– He could have sought death in another way.

How?

– There are a thousand ways. To walk into the desert is one.

Is that not equivalent to suicide?

– No. Death comes from other causes. Not from one’s own hand.

Could one then fast to death without sin?

– Yes.

Would it have to be a total fast, or might one drink water to avoid the pain of kidney failure?

– One might drink water. But the circumstances would have to be extreme for him to attempt in any way to fast to death. As extreme as any of the cases you have just put to me.

Some may claim that this is another example of casuistry. That there is no true difference between hanging oneself, walking into a desert without hope of finding food or water, and fasting to death. All are acts of the will intending one’s own death.

– There is a difference. In the first case the man makes certain. He allows no opportunity for God’s intervention other than by an instantaneous miracle. The rope might break, but presumably the suicide makes sure that this could not happen without a miracle. He means to kill himself, and for death to be immediate. In the other two cases he does indeed invite death, while knowing that a thousand natural accidents may prevent it. He is not commanding his death, he is merely seeking it if it will come to him. There is a serious difference in the cases.

PRAYER

Will you explain to me again how to pray?

– In prayer one should seek union with God. How you achieve this is unimportant. Formal prayers are like the supports a child needs when he is learning to walk. He clings to a chair, his mother’s hand. Once he can walk properly he no longer needs these supports.

But Christ taught us a formal prayer, the Our Father. It contains His own words. And Our Lady and Your angel between them created the Hail Mary, or the substance of it, and the prayers we say at the Angelus.

– These are the necessary supports given to you for your first steps in prayer. Use them. But do not imagine that they are more than supports. The truest prayer contains no words.

Should one then seek to hold an image of You in one’s mind? Of Christ? Of Our Lady? Of the Mysteries of the Rosary?

– These images are also supports. One should learn to do without them, to pray without words or mental images.

This seems impossible. One cannot think without words or mental pictures.

– Prayer is not thinking. It is surrender. You do not need to explain anything to God, or tell him your needs or those of others. He knows. You must surrender yourself utterly, mind and soul and body, all your being. You must return to God. When you do this successfully God will so fill you with Himself that all things will be possible to you. By your spiritual strength you will be able to help others. Through your being God’s Will and Mercy will flow towards them and heal them.

Of illness?

– Of sin.

Should one pray all day long?

– Your whole life, waking and sleeping, should be a prayer. True prayer is love. The lover longs day and night to be with the Beloved.

THE WAYS TO GOD

You have told me that there are a thousand ways to Perfection, to reach You. What are the principal ways?

– The Way of Suffering is the shortest and best. The Way of Love is gentler and longer. The Way of Obedience is longest, but easiest to follow. These are the three principal Ways. The suffering of Christ, the Love of Our Lady, Obedience to God’s Will. All other Ways are combinations or variations of these three.

Is there not a Way of Learning?

– No. No one could find the way by reading books or consulting his own mind.

And for those who do not know of Our Lady, or of Christ?

– Then they must love Me, or suffer for Me, or be obedient to Me. All men can find Me if they look for Me.

GOD’S FRIENDS

How can a man be God’s friend?

– By loving Him.

But how can we truly love Him when we fear Him?

– He does not wish to be feared.

He made us. He has the power of life and death over us. He can destroy us. How can we not be afraid of Him? And when we know that we deserve to be destroyed?

– You must learn not to fear Him. This is the deepest mystery, not to be afraid of God. Before Man fell he was not afraid. You must recover your innocence. What you should fear till then is failure, not God.

But how can we face God when He knows our failures, knows our weakness?

– How do you face your friends?

We have to conceal our worst side from them.

– Then they are not true friends.

Can we say, You see into my heart. Love me in spite of it?

– Yes.

But any man would be ashamed. He would run and hide himself as Adam did.

– I long for Adam to come back to me.

You drove him out. You set an angel with a flaming sword to keep him out of Paradise. How can You say You long for him to come back to You?

– The angel with the flaming sword was his own conscience, his own shame and fear. He ran away. I did not drive him out.

Then is the Bible wrong?

– Man wrote the Bible, not I.

If Adam had not run away, would you have forgiven him?

– I have forgiven him. I am waiting for him to find his way back to Me.

But all You have to do is call him!

– I am calling him.

And you would take him back to You as Your friend with all his imperfections, and his shames, and his wickedness?

– Those are not truly parts of him. He must leave them behind.

And is that the entire Mystery?

– That is the entire Mystery.

THE SECOND COMING

At the end of these times you have foretold to me, and after Armageddon, will Christ come again to rule the world?

– No.

Yet the Gospels, and Revelation, foretell His coming. Are they wrong?

– No. But that time is not yet. Not for many thousands of years, many ages. Man will come near to destroying himself many times.

So that what You have called the last days in this book are only the last days of this age, not of the world and mankind?

– Yes.

What will happen after these last days? Will the Anti-Christs be defeated?

– Yes. Man will rise again and be happy. For a time.

Revelation speaks of Christ reigning for a thousand years after the Anti-Christs are defeated.

– That is imagery of the Church reborn.

Will the Church rule in this new world?

– No. Men will rule. But in accordance with the Church’s teaching. Until they are seduced again, and the Church corrupted again.

But the world will rebuild itself?

– Time and again. Until the true end. That is still far away.

You have told me that there are only three more Popes to be chosen*. [* This was written during the reign of Paul VI] Will the reborn Church have no successor to these Popes?

– He will have a different title. He will be called The Servant. He will be one of the Essenes.

ISRAEL

You have told me that a good man may not rebel against a tyrant, nor take up arms until resistance by others to the tyrant has become a civil war which the opposition has a chance of winning. Is that correct?

– Yes.

Can we look at a practical example? At Palestine and the establishment of the State of Israel? Do You think the Jews were right to resist the Arabs who wished to destroy them in 1948?

– Yes.

Yet this resistance would have been impossible if the Jews had not trained and organised themselves by illegal methods under the British authorities. Do you approve of the illegal methods that they used?

– No.

Surely this is the height of illogicality? You approve of something which would have been impossible without something of which You disapprove. How can You reconcile Your answers?

– Very simply. Much that the Jews did before 1948 was unnecessary for their future safety. They committed violent acts against the British and against Arabs. It is these acts that I condemn.

Then do you approve of their gathering arms so long as they did not use them against authority?

– Yes. So long as there was an authority to obey, they should have obeyed it in all things that would not endanger their existence in the future. It was permissible to break the law in self- defence. Self-defence is not always a single act at a single moment. It may require a long period of preparation, as in this case. There is a further difference here between the case of Israel and the questions you put to me before about resisting tyranny. There you spoke of individuals and small groups. In Israel a whole community, a whole people was involved.

Do numbers excuse wrong-doing?

– No. But in themselves they constitute authority. If a whole people was to rebel against a tyrant, the individual could rightly throw in his lot with the community.

Yet a few individual leaders of that community would have had to begin to plan the rebellion. Were they, as individuals, doing wrong at first?

– No. Not if the circumstances justified rebellion, and if they secured the agreement of their community before beginning to act violently.

Nevertheless, You seem to have told me on other occasions that a good man must obey all laws, even unjust ones.

– Yes.

Yet now You seem to approve of the breaking of such laws?

– Only when such laws come into conflict with higher laws, those of Nature and of God. No law can compel a man to go against his properly informed conscience. A law could not compel you to commit murder. Nor suicide. If it attempts to do so you must break it. The laws which the Jews broke in British Palestine were condemning them to racial suicide, by leaving them defenceless against the hostile Arabs. They were right to break those laws by training and organising a Jewish army, and by equipping it with smuggled weapons. They were only wrong when they used those weapons not in self-defence but in acts of terror or unnecessary retaliation.

You have also said to me that since 1947, the Jews have been wrong not to make peace with the Arabs?

– I did not say that. It has been impossible to make peace. I have said that the Jews are now attempting to gain too much. They will lose by it.

Do you sympathise with the Jews?

– Yes.

Yet in plain fact they seem to have taken land that belonged to Arabs? Are the Arabs wrong to want it back?

– No.

Then do you also sympathise with the Arabs?

– Yes.

Surely one side must be right and the other wrong?

– Why?

In any argument, is there not always one side that is right, and one that is wrong?

– No. Usually both sides have some right and some wrong. That is the case here.

THE PYRAMIDS

Do the measurements of the pyramids have any secret meaning?

– Yes.

Is it a prophetic meaning?

– No. A spiritual one. It is connected with the teaching of the Essenes.

Can it be understood today?

– By those that have the key, yes.

But why was it secreted in the pyramids?

– Because they are as near to permanent structures as man has devised. Once incorporated in them the secret would not easily be lost.

Is the secret to do with the Trinity?

– Yes. Each pyramid is a symbol of the Trinity, of the Three in One.

Is that the only, or the whole secret?

– No. There are layers under layers of secrets within the shapes and measurements of the Pyramids.

Are all these ‘under-secrets’ to do with the Trinity?

– No. They are to do with the Nature of God and Man, the Fall, Redemption. All the things written in this book can be read in the pyramids.

But why did these things have to be secret? Why could they not by written clearly, in the language and writing of the time? Carved in stone for permanency?

– They were. And the stones and inscriptions were destroyed.

When?

– In the reaction after the reign of Akhnaton.

But that reign occurred long after the pyramids were built. Who preserved the stones and inscriptions until then?

– The priests of Ra in Memphis.

As secrets?

– Yes. In the sense of doctrines not made public.

Anyone reading this will imagine that it is total fantasy, a mixture of the Essenes and the Pyramids and the priests of Ra and Akhnaton. Names covering a span of thousands of years.

– That is not very long.

It is in historical terms. When the inscriptions were destroyed, what happened to the secrets?

– Moses took them out of Egypt.

Was this the Exodus?

– In the true sense, yes. The Exodus as it is described in the Bible is a legend.

What was the real Exodus?

– Moses and twelve companions.

Were these companions Jews? Descendants of Abraham?

– No. They were slaves, who had been freed under Akhnaton, and feared they would be re-en slaved.

This sounds like the novel, ‘Sinuhe the Egyptian.’

– In a sense it is. That novel was meant to tell the true story of Moses and the Exodus.

Why did it not tell it?

– The author failed.

What is the true story? Was Moses a physician, like Sinuhe? And the son of the old Pharaoh?

– He was a physician, yes. But not the son of the Pharaoh. He was the son of one of the Palace women. She concealed his birth as the Bible tells. And he grew up to become a doctor.

Did he learn the secrets of the Pyramids from the priests?

– Yes. They were available to anyone who wished to study them, if he was of the right cast of mind. They were secrets only from the ignorant.

Did Moses travel as Sinuhe did in the novel?

– Yes.

There was a real Sinuhe in Egyptian history, a physician and traveller. Was he or his story connected with Moses?

– No.

Did Moses return to Egypt during Akhnaton’s reign?

– Yes.

Because Akhnaton was putting into practice the teachings of the priests of Ra, and of the Pyramids?

– Yes. He became a man of influence, as Sinuhe does in the novel. That part of the novel told the truth. He became physician to the Pharaoh.

Did Akhnaton ‘s reforms have the terrible results that the novel describes?

– Yes. Akhnaton was unwise in the extreme. The world was not ready for such teachings.

So that when Akhnaton died, Moses fled from the reaction, and from the persecution of Akhnaton’s successor?

– Yes. With twelve companions.

Were these companions educated men as well as slaves? Were they all men?

– They were uneducated. And yes, they were all men. They were under obligations to Moses, and trusted him. When he and they escaped they went together into the desert of Sinai, and there he educated them. They became his disciples.

For forty years? Is that part of the story true?

– No. Forty is a ritual number in the Bible and in the pagan legends from which the Bible draws much of its material. They were in the desert for many years, and then moved north into Canaan. There they were accepted as priests and wise men by a group of nomad tribes, known as the Khabiru.

Had these tribes ever been in Egypt?

– No.

So that the story of Joseph and his brethren is not true?

– No. It is not true. It is a legend. But like many legends it contains spiritual truths that are worth studying. It also reflects a memory of the Hyksos conquest of Egypt.

Did Moses write the Books of the Pentateuch? Genesis and Exodus and Leviticus and Numbers and Deuteronomy? Or any part of them?

– No. These were all compiled many centuries later, by priests who used pagan sources and traditions of many kinds.

Did Moses speak to Jehovah on the Mountain and receive the Ten Commandments on stone tablets?

– No. The stone tablets as they are called were clay tablets on which he wrote the essence of his teachings, or rather the teachings that he himself had received. They were afterwards broken.

Did he break them because of his disappointment in his followers?

– Yes.

But he passed on his teaching to them orally?

– Yes.

Did they become the first Essenes?

– No. In a metaphysical sense there were Essenes long before the time of Moses. He became one. But as you know, historically the name belongs much later, to the settlements of pious Jews near the Dead Sea at the time of Christ. Within these settlements there were a few men who held this inner teaching and passed it on to others.

Is there a continuity of this inner teaching from Moses until today?

– Yes.

Passed on orally? From teacher to disciple, over a period of much more than three thousand years?

– No. I instruct each generation of Essenes, of Servants.

And is nothing written down?

– Except in the measurements of the pyramids, as I have told you.

It seems the sheerest fantasy.

– So does the existence of God, and everything else I have told you. To a materialist the whole Universe is fantasy.

Did Moses’ teachings influence the writing of the Pentateuch? Are parts of his teaching embedded in it?

– Yes. Of course. But much distorted. The spiritual truths are there, not the facts.

So that there is much to be learned and gained from reading the Old Testament?

– Yes.

Did God really select the Jews as His Chosen People?

– Yes.

Was Moses the instrument of His choice rather than Abraham?

– Both were His instruments. Abraham’s work was to prepare his descendants to receive God’s teaching. Moses’ work was to give that teaching to them. He gave it on two levels; a simple one, adapted to simple people, nomadic tribesmen; and a complex one, given to his disciples. He was a forerunner of Christ. Later, in His day, Christ acted in the same fashion.

You have told me that Moses did not originate this teaching, nor Akhnaton, nor the priests of Ra in his day. Did the Pharaohs who built the pyramids originate it, or the priests of Ra of their time?

– No. I originated it.

You originate all things. But how did You do this? Who did You tell first?

– A priest of Ra. He was my chosen one. But he was not an Egyptian. Ra was worshipped elsewhere as well as in Egypt.

Is his name known?

– It is to Me.

But is it written anywhere?

– No. The places it where it was written were destroyed.

Was he very great and good?

– Yes. Very great. Very good. The world is in his debt.

It seems terrible that his name should be forgotten.

– It is not forgotten. The Essenes know it.

Will you tell it to me?

– Not yet.

And he lived at the time of the first pyramid?

– Before then. Long before. And as I have told you, in another country, not Egypt. It was his followers who had the idea of preserving their secrets in the pyramids.

Have there ever been many followers who knew these secrets?

– No. Never more than twelve who knew all of them.

Even in Akhnaton’s time?

– Even then.

Was Moses the only survivor of the twelve of his generation?

– Yes. He became the Teacher of Righteousness and had to choose twelve Servants to replace those who had died, and teach them the secrets.

But now, you have given these secrets in this book?

– Some of them. But those who will understand even the ones told here will be very few.

Are there other books that contain these secrets?

– No.

Did you mean Sinuhe the Egyptian, the novel, to tell them?

– No. I meant it to prepare some men’s minds for knowledge.

And the Essenes, to use the name still, the Teacher and his Twelve Servants, they can check their knowledge against the pyramids, like a standard of measurement?

– They do not need to. But the standard is there if it should ever be needed.

Even though time and decay may have altered the precise measurements? The covering of the pyramids is long vanished, and none of the measurements can any longer be exact.

– That does not matter.

Then what does matter? Books and books have been written based on the lengths of the sides and the burial chambers and their angles.

– It is nothing to do with any such measurements.

Are there secret chambers inside the pyramids that have not yet been discovered? That contain writings?

– Yes.

Archaeologists have probed for these by all sorts of means, and discovered nothing.

– They were not meant to.

Do you wish to tell me where the chambers are?

– Yes. They are in the foundations. Far down.

In my first question I asked if the measurements had any significance and You said yes. Is that wrong? Did I misunderstand You?

– No. But the measurements are not the ones you were thinking of, the sides and heights and angles of the pyramids above ground. There is much hidden below the ground. These measurements have significance. They are mathematical formulae like a code.

And there are also writings?

– Yes.

Papyri?

– No. Inscriptions carved into the rock.

Are the mathematical formulae those that Pythagoras was later to reveal?

– Some of them. But those he revealed are not generally understood.

Was Pythagoras an Essene?

– Yes. He was a Teacher of the Essenes. But remember, we are using the name ‘Essenes’ in a very particular sense; not the historical one.

And Zoroaster? And Buddha? They both lived approximately in the same period as Pythagoras? And Isaiah? Were they all connected?

– Yes.

Were they Essenes? In this especial sense?

– No. But they were taught by the Essenes. That has been the role of the Essenes; to teach; to preserve the truth and teach as much of it to each generation as that generation could accept. T

The Teacher is the ‘Teacher of Righteousness’ of the Dead Sea Scrolls?

– Yes.

Is there also a Suffering Servant among the Twelve? The twelve disciples, or Servants, of the Teacher?

– Yes. It is his task to suffer for the sins of his generation. Jesus was both Teacher of Righteousness and Suffering Servant, in His own Person. But in all other generations these two roles have been separate.

But today? Are these roles still necessary?

– Yes.

I thought Christ fulfilled them for ever. His sacrifice was for ever, for all mankind?

– His sacrifice was for ever, and yet it needs to be renewed. All men must renew it within themselves. He gave an example, yet each man and woman must follow that example and sacrifice themselves. Until they do, the Suffering Servant of their generation suffers for them. And the Teacher of Righteousness of their generation preserves the Truth for them and for the future.

Were Christ’s twelve disciples, the twelve Apostles, all Essenes? The Twelve Servants of that generation?

– No. I have told you. Only Christ and St. John the Evangelist belonged to the order. They belonged twice over, to the historical Essenes, the pious Jews of such monastery settlements as Qmran, and to the inner order, the Twelve and the Teacher.

U. F .O.’s

Why are these Unidentified Flying Objects coming here, to the earth? What do their occupants want from us?

– Power.

Do You mean power over us? Over human beings?

– No. Physical power. Nuclear energy.

Have they none on their own planets?

– Not enough. And it is dangerous to exploit it. They prefer to have you exploit your nuclear energy for them.

They have been coming here for centuries, even thousands of years. Have they always had the same motive?

– They came first as explorers and prospectors. It has been a long process. They come from very far away.

Do they take the nuclear fuel away with them?

– Yes. Originally they took the raw materials. Now they take a finished product.

Is this stolen from us?

– No. It is given.

By human beings? By our governments?

– Yes. Or rather by some members and agents of our government who serve these visitors to the earth.

How do these individuals obtain it? All nuclear material is supposed to be carefully checked.

– Not carefully enough.

Do they take large quantities?

– No. Very small. The visitors need only small quantities But they can utilise them in ways you do not vet understand. It is this process that is so dangerous.

Do these visitors have other motives for coming here?

– No. Except for secondary motives deriving from this principal one. They wish to control you so that you cannot deprive them of what they need. But I have told you, they are not all from the same place. They are in conflict one with another.

Will they destroy us in this conflict of theirs?

– They may. You yourselves have destroyed colonial peoples in your wars.

What do they look like? Can they disguise themselves as human beings?

– Not easily. Their ordinary appearance would be unpleasant and strange to you. They do not all look the same. Some look nearer to your humanity than others.

How do they communicate with their human servants?

– By telepathy. And thought-control.

Why do their human servants obey them?

– They have no choice. Once they have allowed themselves to be controlled they have to continue obeying.

Could they avoid that first act of obedience?

– With difficulty, yes. But they are flattered, or curious, or weak, and they obey.

Are they rewarded?

– Yes. By many things. Money. An illusion of power. The rewards these bring.

Do they see their controllers face to face?

– Sometimes.

But in the beginning? Does something they must regard as monstrous appear to them?

– Yes. But the word is not monstrous. Strange. Frightening.

How do these strange and frightening beings conceal themselves from the rest of us?

– They choose lonely, isolated places to land. They must find a subject for their control, a suitable human being, who is alone at the time they approach him, and separated from other human beings. It is a slow process. They have been engaged on it for forty years, with intensity.

Since the 1930s?

– Yes. Since you began to understand atomic power, and create the means to exploit it.

Turning back to the question of the fuel these visitors want from us, do they simply carry away what they are given, and use it in their world?

– No. There are further processes, as I have just said. They themselves conduct these dangerous processes in your world, instead of theirs. They then take away the finished product, which is now safe.

Is there the danger of an accident, here on earth?

– Yes. A great danger. Such a an accident would be a catastrophe for your world. They obtain immense power, beyond your conception, from very small quantities of uranium.

Was the explosion in Siberia, early in this century, a nuclear accident of that kind?

– Yes. They were already mining and processing uranium in your world, without your help. The site is still radioactive.

Is their method of propulsion like any method that we now use or can visualise? For our space probes and manned space- craft?

– It is utterly unlike any method you have yet imagined.

Have any of our Science Fiction writers come near imagining it?

– No.

Do they come from beyond our solar system?

– From far beyond it.

Do you wish to tell me how far?

– No.

Does it take them an immense time to reach our planet? Or have they discovered a way of travelling faster than light?

– They travel faster than light. Much faster. The speed of light is not an ultimate measurement.

SPIRITUAL POWER

Do people gain spiritual power, or create spiritual power, by being together at Mass?

– Neither. They neither gain it nor create it from the mere fact of being together.

Yet people in a crowd seem to gain great emotional strength simply from being in a crowd. They become a mob, that appears to have a will and existence of its own, even if at a very low level. Can they not gain these at a higher level if they are united in prayer, at Mass?

– If they are truly united, yes. The physical togetherness means nothing, even in a crowd. For a crowd to become a mob with a will and entity of its own, the crowd must have a common purpose. Enthusiasm for a leader or a cause. It is the same at Mass. Most people go to Mass from habit, with mild beliefs. Only if they attend Mass with the same intensity of passion as a crowd attends a football match, will they generate spiritual power. In such a case, the power will be tremendous. But it comes from unity of minds, not nearness of bodies.

And yet we are told in the Gospels that in order to pray we should be alone. Is this a contradiction?

– No. We have begun to discuss this before. In being alone in that way you can become united more easily with God

Then what is the purpose of being together at Mass?

– Your ultimate purpose is to be both united with other minds and souls, and with God. Usually, in human existence, the presence of other human beings tends to distract you from the thought of God and to make union with Him more difficult Therefore you pray alone, to seek that union, but you attend Mass in numbers in order to receive the Grace of the Mass and have the opportunity of seeking the same union in company with others, although it is more difficult. It is like an athlete, who sometimes trains alone, running only against a stop-watch, and sometimes trains in company with others, to become used to the real circumstances of a race. Both types of training are useful to him, but ultimately he will race with others, not alone. So men will ultimately have to learn to be united with others when they pray. With their companions of their own Real Mind. With the other Real Minds that make up their Greater Mind. Until they can unite totally in Adam.

FALLING AWAY

When young people fall away from the Church, what should their parents do? Should they try to compel them to go to Mass and Confession?

– No.

Should they attempt to influence them only by example?

– Yes. But for the young people to have fallen away, the example must have been lacking, or have been wrong.

Must that be so? Can they not have been influenced by others rather than by their parents’ poor example? By those of their own age, or by other adults they admire?

– Yes. But if their parents were all that they should have been, their example would be paramount. It is not enough for the parents to have gone to Mass every Sunday and Day of Obligation. They must have lived their Faith seven days a week. Many young people leave the Church not from evil motives or even indifference. They leave for idealism because they see their parents, and adults, and the Church Itself, as materialist and worse. As hypocritical.

Then can You offer no comfort to such parents?

– None. They must search their hearts. It is not they who need comfort but their children.

CREMATION

Does the method of burial have any importance?

– Only for the living.

Then is cremation permissible?

– Yes.

And it has no effect on the mind or the soul?

– None. No more than burning your old clothes.

Does it not cause the soul or the spirit any pain? Even momentary?

– No.

Yet we are often taught that the soul lingers in or near the body after death. Does it?

– Yes. Your spirit hesitates to accept the reality of death, and the necessity of facing the truth of what the just-ended life has been, and failed to be. But the pain the spirit feels is concerned with that self-examination, not with anything that is done to the dead and discarded body.

You say the spirit feels pain. Does the soul feel anything?

– No. I have told you before. The soul is a force, an energy, like the flame from a fire. It feels nothing. It simply is.

SEANCES

Are the reports of seances truthful when they describe apparitions of the dead, objects materialising and disappearing, tables that four strong men could not lift floating in the air and soon?

– They can be true. Sometimes there has been fraud. But many times the manifestations have been genuine.

Are they caused always by spirits, by elementals?

– No. Elementals will flock to such seances out of a childish curiosity and sense of fun or malice. Sometimes dead individuals will truly endeavour to make use of them to contact the living, but as we have discussed before, this is not usual, nor productive of much intelligent information for the living. Sometimes more powerful spirits will create manifestations of the kind you have just described.

Is there any purpose in such things?

– Yes. I allow them because modern man must learn that he is not alone. He must learn that there are other worlds, other dimensions of existence, other realities. If he will not learn this through religion, then he must learn it in any way that he can accept.

Is this why the development of seances seemed to flourish in the 19th century, exactly when Science appeared to be banishing transcendental religion?

– Yes. And again now, when Science is widening its embrace to explain all phenomena in scientific terms. 19th century Science explained the spiritual and psychic worlds by denying their existence. 20th century Science explains them by means of parapsychology. In both cases Science is mistaken, and man must learn that existence cannot be explained in terms of himself alone.

Are You hostile to Science?

– Of course not. Science means knowledge. I am hostile only to limitations on knowledge, and the error of human Science is to impose such limitations by saying that what it cannot explain cannot exist. It is unable to accept that there are certain matters beyond present human explanations or understanding. Man must be constantly reminded of this, if he is to continue seeking a path to Me. The nature of the reminders must be suited to the times, and to particular groups of men. The manifestations at seances will convince some people where a miracle of a religious kind would not.

Are all the ‘paranormal’ and ‘super-normal’ phenomena one hears of to be explained in that way? As reminders of a greater reality?

– In essence, yes. But some of these reminders are not deliberate. They occur in the nature of human existence. Many things happen quite ordinarily that Science cannot or has not explained, and therefore dismisses as non-existent or fraudulent.

What kind of things?

– They would fill this book. There is scarcely a human being who has not had experiences that he has taught himself to regard as ‘inexplicable’ and therefore imaginary, or else not to be discussed, for fear of being called a liar. Other experiences are so self-evident that they have to be discussed, but since they do not fit into current scientific categories they are disregarded by scientists.

Will you give me an example?

– We have discussed some of them. For instance, an artist who paints pictures in the style of a dead painter of a quality far above his normal abilities; or who produces exact copies of works of art he has never seen with his physical eyes. Or musicians who compose in the same way, or writers who produce books. Scientists can offer no explanation, and yet these works exist by the hundred and the thousand. And there are many similar facts.

Some scientists do explain these things. Either by the workings of the artist’s subconscious, the scientist claiming that the artist has previously seen the work he has just copied, even if he has forgotten doing so. Or else that the artist is drawing on the collective subconscious of humanity, so putting himself or herself in touch with the mind of the dead artist, or with the reservoir of creative force from which all artists draw their inspiration. Could either of these explanations be correct?

– Both could be correct. But the second explanation is already bringing you very far from conventional Science, and into the area of thought I wish you to occupy. My whole lesson to you in these matters is that men are not isolated individuals but parts of a vast whole whose total experience they must ultimately share. At times, even in this world, an artist, a medium, a spirit- ually sensitive individual, a psychically gifted one, can draw on this total experience either by conscious choice and desire, or unconsciously. This is what some dowsers practise, as I have told you. So do many artists in their own fashion. Or those who receive knowledge of other lives, or who speak at times in languages they do not consciously know, or who see visions of the past or future. Existence is a vast whole and unity of which you see only a minute fragment in your normal lives. Science concerns itself only with that fragment. But the total experience is always there, and at times it touches your mind and forces you to be aware of it.

SELL ALL THAT YOU HAVE

I have asked you before if we must sell all that we have in order to give to the poor. And you told me no. But does that incident in the Gospel have another, hidden meaning? That applies to everyone?

– Yes. Each of you must give up your dearest possession. For the young man it was his wealth. But everyone has something that is closest to his heart, and that he must sacrifice, to make room for Me.

The musician must give up his music? The writer his writing? The lover his love?

– No. Those are not things. Those are ways to Me. Or can be. If they are loved rightly.

Is it only possessions one must sacrifice? Comforts, luxuries, treasured things?

– For many people that is already a great deal.

Jesus said one must leave father and mother – even wife. These are not things. Surely they are love that could lead to You? You have just said the lover should not give up his love?

– Jesus said one must leave them to follow Him But that is only if there is a conflict between your love for them and your love for Him. If they try to prevent you from following Him, then you must leave them. Just as you would have to leave them if you were of military age and your country demanded that you join the army to fight in a just war. Jesus was calling you to a greater duty than that. But if there is no conflict between the loves – your love of your father, your mother, your wife, your husband, and your love of God and your duty to Him, then there is no need for that kind of sacrifice. And if your writing serves God, or your music, or your painting, then there is no need to sacrifice those. It is only such things as stand between you and the love of God that need to be sacrificed. The things that bind you to this world and blind your eyes to the real world. The sacrifice is not for the sake of sacrifice, but to give you freedom. And if your writing was to bind you to this world then that too would have to be sacrificed. But only then.

THE LOVE OF GOD

In the total surrender of the devout mind to God, enemies have seen masochism. No more than frustrated sexual love and a longing for suffering and humiliation. How can one answer this?

– By accepting that it is partly true. But the surrender of the mind to God is not a substitute for masochistic experience. The real truth is the other way round. The masochist looks for and finds a substitute for God. He or she finds it in a sadistic partner. The masochist longs for total surrender, but he or she wishes to find it, and enjoy it in a simple, immediately rewarding form, involving the physical senses and the shallow emotions, rather than the depths of the mind and the reality of the soul. The masochist is like someone dying of thirst who drinks from the first muddy pool of water he finds, instead of from the pure spring farther on.

And the sadist?

– The sadist is a much worse case. The sadist plays the role of Satan in God’s Creation. He cannot create – I say he, but often the sadist may be female – he or she cannot create so they seek to destroy. Their motive is not misguided love, but jealous hatred of love. Their driving forces are hatred, and contempt for gentleness, and meekness and surrender of the Will. The sadist wishes to be God, as Satan does. Within the sadist’s mind is played out again the rebellion of Satan against God, and in his relations with his victim, or her victim, there is played out a terrible parody of the relationship between God and His Creation. In this parody there is inherent all the evil of the Black Mass, and of Devil worship. I do not say that the sadist is consciously aware of this. In most such sexual perversions there is no more than a sensual craving between two wounded individuals incapable of healthy love, but the potentiality of true evil is always there.

Are all perversions of love equally evil or potentially so? Homosexuality, all the range of perversion?

– No. But as deviations from the truth they lead the victim, the practitioner, farther and farther away from God. True love, creative love between a man and a woman, that endures lifelong, is a reflection and imitation of God’s eternal love for His Creation. All alterations of that love, all perversions of it, must be less than perfect, less than good, and must if pursued become evil in the end. But sadistic love is evil from its first beginnings.

Yet the Saint’s love for God is not as you describe True Love to be? A creative love with a human partner?

– I have just said to you that that love is a reflection, an imitation of God’s love for His Creation. The Saint’s love is not a reflection or an imitation, it is Love itself. It is Perfect Love. It is the perfect answer to God’s love. It is the love of God.

SELF – DECEPTION

How is it that men and women who are certain that they are doing good are so often self-deceived, and do evil instead? Why do You allow it?

– They have Free Will. I allow them to use it.

Then how do they deceive themselves? How for instance can devout Christians be cruel in the name of Christ?

– To use Christ’s name is no guarantee against sin. Such people have adopted a good principle, but that is not enough. It is only a first step. One does not become a swordsman by buying a sword, nor a gentlemen by putting on a frock coat. If you are clumsy you will drop the sword. If you are uncultivated, the frock coat will not disguise you. If you are cruel, the name of Christ will not make you gentle. You must not only adopt a principle, you must allow it to penetrate to your heart and soul, and to fill your mind. You must not only believe your Faith, you must live it.

Yet some of the types of Christian I am thinking of are not clumsy, nor uncultivated, and they live or did live their Faith according to their lights. They fasted, mortified their bodies, pursued You on their knees day and night. And yet they were still cruel. How could that be?

– They did not question themselves deeply enough, or often enough. They should have questioned and questioned. Listened and listened. Been humble enough to listen and to be told that they were wrong.

Would You have told them them?

– Yes. With joy. But I will not force anyone to listen. They must come to Me. Not with long prayers but with humility.

And how is it that so many people who possess bad principles are so pleasant to know, and seem much better than many people whose principles are good?

– For the same reason. Just as good principles, by themselves, will not make a cruel man kind, or a lustful man chaste, so bad principles by themselves will not make a kind and loving man cruel or cold. This is what the Gospel means when it says not all those who call Lord, Lord, will be chosen. And equally, not all those who seem to pursue the Devil, will be damned.

REINCARNATION

You have told me that sometimes an individual who has been killed before his work is done, or a baby who has been aborted, may be reincarnated. Does this happen often?

– No. But at any moment there would be several hundred people who had had this experience.

Do those who have lived before remember their previous lives?

– Very often, if this memory serves a purpose.

Is this true reincarnation? Or the possession of a new-born or about-to-be-born mind by the mind of the untimely dead individual?

– It is usually a form of possession.

So that the possessed child is going to be robbed of his own true mental existence?

– No. For a time he will endure difficult mental experiences, as though he was carrying a mental passenger or possessed two personalities. Eventually the condition will disappear. But you must understand this condition in concert with what I have told you about the Real Mind. In certain conditions any individual can be in contact with, and so to say possessed by not one only but a thousand other minds, which may guide or help him if he seeks their guidance. You must not think of your individual mind as a totally isolated entity. It is part of a much greater whole as I have explained to you, and when it is ‘possessed’ in the benign way we have been discussing, it is being possessed not by an alien spirit, but by another part of its Real Mind.

Is this also the explanation of the knowledge of past lives that some people possess, and that convinces them they have lived before?

– Sometimes. They are hearing echoes of reality. And in one sense they may have lived these earlier lives. Not all the members of a Real Mind live at the one time. Its thousand human lives may span several thousand years, and as I have told you, each individual mind has had and will have several non-human lives. Your present consciousness is part of a vast continuum, and may receive information or influences from many, many areas of that continuum.

FAILURES

In London I have seen tramps sleeping under railway arches. The ruins of men, destroyed by drink and despair. And it seemed to me that they were doomed to this from their birth; that they were born inadequate, unable to manage their lives, and that unless someone protected them they were bound to end as they have done.

– Well?

Can they be blamed for it? And yet what purpose have their lives served?

– If their lives have served no purpose they can be blamed. But the fact of their being tramps does not mean that they have not had a purpose, and served it as best they could.

But my Lord! This is juggling with words and questions. Look at them! Sleeping on pavements, filthy, drunken, depraved, dying. What purpose can they serve? Their minds are already dead. They seem to exist only to shame society. And what can society do for them except hide them away in hospitals to die out of sight?

– Perhaps that is their purpose, to shame the rest of you.

What a cruel thing that would be. To let these men decay into refuse so that the well-fed and socially adjusted might possibly be embarrassed. And we’re not embarrassed. We don’t even notice them.

– You noticed them.

And passed by quickly. What could I do for them? Buy them wine? Give them charity to drink themselves into a night’s forgetfulness? Why were they born, if this was to be their lives?

– Why is a cripple born? An imbecile? A mongol child? Why do people die of cancer, commit suicide, become murderers? Why is there sin and misery in the world? Have you understood nothing that I have told you?

You mean this is the Devil’s work?

– Do you believe that it is Mine?

Sometimes I don’t know what to believe.

– Reread what I have made you write. Try to understand.

Then is a cripple, an imbecile, a mongol child, the work of the Devil? I thought You told me that such people could be closer to You than the rest of us?

– So they can. But it is not by My wish that they suffer. I wish only for Perfection, in mind and body. It is the result of the Fall, of the Devil’s work, that imperfection exists. Yet when it exists, I make use of it to recreate Perfection.

THE SPIRITUAL WORLD

Is the spiritual world, the real world, in any way like this one?

– It is this one. There is no difference. Except that you cannot see its reality. You see only a thousandth part of it. Not even so much. And as well as seeing, there are your other senses, and senses that you do not yet possess even imperfectly. You know no more of the real world than a stone knows of the sky. But it is there. It surrounds you.

What kind of things can we not see? And hear? And know?

– Colours, music, scents, the spirits that fill the world. The reality of the landscapes, of sunsets, of the stars, of Creation. You look at a sunset through a thick veil, and think it is wonderful. The reality of a leaf fallen from a tree has more magnificence than your eyes see in the most marvellous sunset.

Do the Kirlian photographs, that show the auras surrounding living objects, a leaf, or a man’s hand and so on, show the reality?

– Again, only a minute part of the reality. More than you see with your eyes, but immensely, immensely less than there exists to see.

Can we learn to see the whole reality? In this lifetime?

– No. You could not endure it.

Do people who take psychedelic drugs see a part of the reality?

– Yes. A part of it. And eventually that will destroy them if they continue looking. You are not fit to see it. It is like your staring at the sun. Within a short time you would go blind.

In this real world that we live in, but cannot see properly, how do we look to You? How do you see us? As pieces of corruption? Ugliness, destroying the beauty of Your Creation?

– No. I see some of you as beautiful. And some pathetic. Some tragic. None of you as ugliness, nor as corruption. You are my children. Does a father see his children as ugliness?

If they behave as badly as we do, then he must. We are like worms burrowing in the mud, like the things that crawl out of carrion. How can You love us?

– Because you are Mine. And I gave My Son for you. I gave My own Self and Life for you. How can I not love you?

We have rejected You.

– Not knowingly.

And the things we have done to your world. We are destroying it. Killing your creatures with our filth and waste. Killing the trees. Turning the seas and rivers into sewers. Does all this not seem ugly when You look at it? Are they not terrible scars on the real world?

– They are. And that is why I see some of you as tragic, and some as pathetic. Because you are doing these things to the world, and worse things to yourselves. But it does not make Me see you as ugliness. Only the things you do.

PSYCHOKINESIS

Can a ‘normal’ person move objects at a distance, if he or she concentrates? For example, a very light object, near at hand, but without touching it?

– No. But a group of ‘normal’ people, concentrating together, and touching one another, could do so. It is not worth doing, however.

If one of the group is psychically ‘gifted’ will this increase the power available considerably? So that a heavy object could be moved? I am thinking of the heavy tables that have risen into the air at seances. Is this sometimes achieved by the unconscious power of the sitters, utilised or directed by the medium, rather than by spirits?

– No. A psychic individual even acting alone, can achieve greater results of this kind than several normal people acting together. But the results are still limited as to force and distance, as I told you before, to the bending of pieces of light metal or the throwing or pushing of light objects. The difference is like that between the achievements of an athlete and an ordinary, healthy individual. Startling, but not unnatural. When heavy objects such as tables move it is the spirits that move them, by directing the forces latent in the onlookers and in the medium herself or himself. Unless, of course, the case is a fraudulent one.

So that we do have greater strength latent in us than we can ever normally utilise?

– Yes.

Could we ever learn to use this strength ourselves, without the intervention of spirits and a medium?

– Yes.

Yet you say that even a psychically gifted individual cannot now do it? Is there a step beyond psychic power or understanding?

– Yes.

Are there individuals in the world now who possess this further gift or have developed this greater power?

– Yes.

Are there many?

– No.

Is there danger for them in possessing or acquiring such power?

– Great danger. They are not only in contact with, but in conflict with devils. Unless they have given themselves over to devils.

Would you describe their degree of power as supernatural?

– In your ordinary usage of the word, yes. But in reality nothing is ‘supernatural’.

Should we seek to achieve such power?

– No. You are not ready for it.

These individuals you speak of. Are some born with such powers already existing in them?

– No.

They all have decided to acquire them, and succeeded?

– Yes. But not everyone could do so. Just as not everyone can become a supreme athlete. And these individuals have developed powers you cannot easily imagine.

Will you give me any examples?

– No.

Do some of them use their powers for good?

– No.

Yet you spoke of their being in conflict with devils?

– There is intense rivalry in Hell.

Do you say, then, that the farther one progresses along the psychic path the more one is committed to evil?

– Yes.

And dowsers? Those who find things by means of a pendulum? Surely their activities are not only innocent but beneficial?

– Yes. But let me give you an analogy. If you paddle in the sea, or swim, or dive with a mask, you will obtain innocent pleasure or even benefits. But if you dive too deep, or swim out too far, you will kill yourself.

Nevertheless, If we possess this great reservoir of force within ourselves, that a medium can direct, or devils can exploit, does it have no purpose?

– Yes. It has a spiritual purpose. It is there to be used by you when you are spiritually developed. At the moment, you use less than a tenth of your mental capacity, and far less than that of your spiritual or psychic capacities. If you knew how to us the whole of these powers, without possessing spiritual understanding, you would destroy the Universe. This is why psychic power is so dangerous to use. It is the easiest to develop, and places power in the hands of individuals who are unfit to use it. It is like giving a bomb to a child and allowing him to light the fuse.

Is psychic power intrinsically evil? Or simply dangerous for the reason you have just given me?

– Purely for the reason I have just given you. One day all men must possess and use it, in defence of good. But for the moment, only the spiritual path is safe for you, leading you towards understanding. When you possess that, you will be able to use all your powers with wisdom.

So that when you spoke of those who follow the psychic path being more and more committed to evil, it is because they are doing it at the wrong time, with too little preparation? Not because they are doing it at all?

– Yes.

And You seemed to speak of a type of power beyond psychic power? Did I understand You correctly?

– Yes.

Is it completely different?

– Yes. The difference is like that between a petrol engine and rocket propulsion. Allowing your ordinary mental processes to be like riding in a horse-drawn carriage.

And at the other end of the spectrum? Is there another order of power beyond the spiritual?

– Yes. You might describe it as angelic power.

Is there then a point at which these two powers, these two seemingly opposite directions, meet, and become one?

– Yes. In Perfection.

Even though the power that we call psychic, and the greater power that lies beyond that, have often served evil?

– Yes.

Nevertheless, are spiritual power and angelic power always superior to and stronger than their psychic opposites?

– No. They are not opposites. They are two ways to Perfection. One is not fit for you to travel. it is too dangerous for you. it is like travelling by sea instead of by land.

When we spoke of psychic and spiritual power before, everything You told me made me believe that psychic power was inferior to spiritual power, and if not evil itself, led to evil.

– This is so for man. But not because of the nature of psychic power; because of the nature of man.

Then are there beings for whom it is the right way?

– Yes.

Quite different to human beings?

– Utterly different. You have no idea, no conception of them.

Are they in this world and yet invisible to us? Are they spirits?

– Yes.

Are they angels? Or beings that must become angels?

– No. They may become angels as you may. There is no must about it, but that is their goal as it is yours.

Have they nothing to do with humanity at all? Or with animals or plants?

– Yes. In the wind. In the sea. In the rivers. In the mountains. I have told you that places have spirit guardians. These are some of the beings that use psychic power as their natural path to Me.

And there are other kinds. They and the spirits of evil can meet one another on equal terms. They use the same weapons. You cannot hope to do so, and those men and women who try to take that path invite their own destruction. No matter how powerful they may seem to become for a little while, they will soon be destroyed.

Do they ever use their power in ways that we can see? They, and those human beings who have an equal degree of spiritual power?

– No. if they did, they would destroy the world.

Do they use their power at all? For good or for evil?

– Of course they do. But in ways beyond your seeing.

And does this have no effect on our world?

– It has a great effect. But not physically. It is part of the warfare between good and evil that either threatens or protects you. It is useless your asking about it. You cannot understand.

Why do there have to be so many paths, and so many kinds of being? Is it only to give You joy in the variety of Creation?

– No. It is to give a variety of beings joy in Me. I wish there to be an infinite variety of creatures, and all to have Perfect Joy.

Yet is Perfection not Unity? One Perfect Being?

– No. Unity is sterility. That would be Self-love, Self-admiration. True Perfection longs to create, to multiply Itself, to share Its joy.

Then does Creation go on for ever? To Infinity?

– That is the meaning of Perfection. That it is infinite, and Eternal. And you will share it. By being part of it you will be one with It, and It will be one with you. It will be both One and Many. And so will you.

TO THE READER

May you have the grace and peace from God who is, and was, and is to come, and from the Seven Spirits before His throne, and from Jesus Christ who faithfully reveals all truth to us.

The End

Please click here for “The Seven Mansions

Back To Top